Into The Shadow
by Nicole Prince
Summary: During one of the most famous coups in Olessan History, Cyras is turned away from the king, her true love, when he finds out who she truly is. Before she can bring about a change in the Olessan Assassin Guild, she is transported to Midcyru. Features: An Original Character.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **Into the Shadow**  
>Author: <strong>Darksaviour03 (Justin and Nicole Prince)**  
>Books: <strong>The Night Angel series**  
>Characters: <strong>Durzo Blint, Kylar Stern, Cyras Covelli (Original Character)**  
>Disclaimer:<br>**Olessa, the world of Arathea, and Cyras is copyrighted to Nicole Prince (*DarkSaviour03) and Justin Prince (Dark Savior Fiction).****

The Night Angel is copyright Brent Weeks. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction.

**Chapter One**

Cyras Covelli rose as the sun set over Olessa, just as she had every day. It was a ritual for her, a habit of her life that she couldn't break. No, if she was honest with herself, she didn't want to break it.

She paced down the hallway of her estate in the city, her bare feet creating an echoing slap as she walked over the black marble tiles of the floor. She couldn't get the King of Olessa out of her mind. He plagued her as if he was a blight. Wherever she turned, she could see his silhouette. Memories flooded into her mind unabated.

Entering the foyer, she breathed in deeply and tried to take comfort in her surroundings. The woman smuggled in several expressionism paintings from the Great Empire to the west. Several large, leafy ferns lined the corners of the room.

_Damn him_, she thought, bitterly. He had rejected her. He'd been informed, by her master no less, of her true identity, that she was the Black Tigress, an infamous Olessan assassin. Vaene Arturis, the king of Olessa, had stripped her of lands and titles. He'd banished her from Olessa, a fate worse than death in both of their eyes.

She stepped towards a window and stared out it. Snow blanketed the branches of slumbering trees, and the rigid limps sagged beneath the heavy weight. Drifts of ivory met the ebony walls of the Luccian Villa, piling up against the sides and towered over the coat of ice.

Being away from Olessa in the winter months, the wintery weather was new to her. She never expected it to be so cold. When Vaene had gazed upon her in his bedchamber after her master's revelation, the icy glare in his grey eyes was a twin to the billowing winter breeze.

Like the swirling snow, her emotions clouded her vision. This was not like her. In fact, she used to pride herself for being emotionless. Cyras never allowed herself to be caught up in the feelings that her marks had. After all, once she thought like them, she wouldn't be able to perform her job. How could one kill someone when regret afflicted her heart?

Cyras sighed. Presently, how remorseful she was did not matter. She was given until nightfall to leave the city. Cyras would have complied, but she had unfinished business. Even if Vaene didn't care about her, even if he wanted nothing to do with her, she couldn't leave him to the fate that she knew her master had in store for him. In light of her failure, he would use her sister, the Viper, in her place. Though she wanted to be as far away from Vaene as possible right at that moment, she didn't want him dead.

She would pull off one more job in Olessa, then she would leave. Gladly.

Before she could go through with the job she was planning, Cyras had one desperate play left. She couldn't just ignore the possibility that Vaene would listen to reason before it became too late. If she could get him out of the city before her sister had a chance to kill him, then she couldn't afford to not take that chance.

Beyond the landscape of her former estate, she could see swirls of smoke lift from the rooftops of the other nobles estate. Under twinkling darkness, the city of Olessa slept. Still, there was an undercurrent to the city. A palpable surge of excitement raced through her streets. Politicians schemed their corrupted plans, lining their pocks with the fruits of the impending rebellion.

Guilt coalesced inside of her body and spread over her as if it were a thick sludge. If her master, the Grand Master of the Olessan Order of assassins, wouldn't have perverted their true cause, there wouldn't have been an insurgence.

When their ancestors escaped their oppressors, the order was founded to protect the kingdom. None of the assassins had their eyes on the throne. They ferreted out conspiracy, cleaving the head off any snake that threatened the monarchy from the shadows.

Cyras longed for such a time. She pondered for a moment if she wanted to save the king so badly because he was king or because the king was Vaene. Would any other monarch inspire such loyalty in her?

The answers taunted her, thrusting their intangible fingers forward and pressing them deeply into her mind. She followed the train of thoughts willingly.

Protecting the regency from outside (and the rare inside) assaults from her enemies was not enough. The Olessan Order of assassins wanted more. Niccolo and his master before him craved to rule all of the Olessan Empire. Cyras would even go as far as to say that Niccolo wanted to rule all of the free world.

He would use the brotherhood like pawns. Niccolo gave the contracts out to those who he knew would not question him. Her brothers and sisters protected the Shade's interest with their own blood and sweat. In return, he took a hefty portion of their dues.

As ambitious as she was, she would never conspire against the throne itself. She did not have the power to defy the Grand Master. Until now.

Pressing her lips together, she tried to think of an acceptable outcome to the looming situation. There was no way around what she had to do. Once more, Niccolo, the name that the Grand Master took, forced her hand against someone she cared for. Past eddied with the present as if the older events were a swift flowing river.

_"Segan!" the man bellowed. His face tightened in a scowl. Bright eyes flared with the fury that roared inside of him._

_A young boy squirmed. He raised his arms and placed his tiny hands around the muscled lowered arm of the assassin._

_The glint of steel sparkled ominously in the moonlight. As Segan moved his head forward, blood blossomed on the gentle sweep of his neck._

_"I have no choice," the assassin growled, huskily. She wouldn't apologize to the father and husband of her targets. There was much about his own situation that even he did not know. Yet, Tigress was privy to it all. In a way, she was doing him a favor._

_"Daddy!"_

_With a quick movement of her wrist, she drew the dagger across the child's throat._

_Blood splattered on her forest livery. It soaked her leather gloves. Bits of the fluid arced upward and sprinkled her face like drops of rain._

_The great general collapsed to his knees, and blond hair swung forward into his face. He was brought down by a simple act. Despite deadening herself to the emotions, the Black Tigress felt a twinge of regret in her soul. _

Feeling Segan's life drain out before her and seeing his father's reaction to it changed her. Regret blackened her soul as if a permanent darkness lurked inside of her. Even when his father looked upon her with murderous intents, she felt the sting of her betrayal.

Cyras sighed, pushing a puff of air out of her lungs. She knew she couldn't change the past. Only the Olessan Magae could do such a thing. There was only one thing she could do. Cyras would have to get him to leave the palace and, eventually, the Olessan Empire.

Dressing quickly, in somber silence, she prepared herself to be humble. If she came to Vaene with her usual arrogance, he would likely close her off immediately. She knew what she would have to do right away.

She narrowed her eyes. Arming herself, she slid two, twin daggers into the sheathes at her side. Cyras reached up and picked up the longsword on the wall. The king had called it "Quelanan", meaning _Hope_ in the old tongue. When Olessa was imprisoned by the people to the west, the sword helped the king led the mystics and his people to freedom. It drew the first blood from the Westerners and help forged a strong kingdom.

She had always found it humorous that it belonged in the hands of an assassin. Not only that, she thought to herself. It was in the hands of a person who had once conspired to usurp the throne.

Presently, it was only hope that drove the woman forward. The choice of betraying her sister or Vaene weighed heavily on her. Cyras would have to choose between the man she loved and her own sister. Blood was blood, but Vaene represented something that Cyras never had. She had chosen.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Cyras' fingers curled around the lip at the top of the wall. Her legs dangled haphazardly and swung back and forth as if she was a leaf sprouting from a thick branch. The edges of her boots scraped faintly against the rough edges.

The moon hung high in the twinkling sky. Beams of milky light streamed down from the heavens, abolishing almost all shadows cast by the tall, slender towers. The ivory, stone walls glimmered in the luminescent rays.

Hoisting herself up over the edge of the rampart, she inhaled deeply. Her breasts rose, her assassin's livery stretching tight across them. She peered into the courtyard and stared at the guard walking in a circular patrol.

As the giant man, Jorge, turned left, the moonlight flowed over him. The top of his head shimmered, brightening his yellowish complexion. Black tattoos darkened the skin of his face, marring his flesh. Vaene had told her that most of the markings that this man bore Jorge had inflicted upon himself.

_This man is unlike other guards_, she thought. Most soldiers were vain, womanizing assholes. Their thoughts would be consumed with their latest conquest. Those types of guards made frequent visits to Niccolo's brothels. They pawed at her with their dirty fingers.

Others of the Olessan Watch were doddering fools. They patrolled halfheartedly, stopping at the perimeter, drooling beneath their helm, and scratching their genitalia. A dim, slow-burning fire lurked deeply in their eyes.

Jorge disappeared into the shadows cast by the keep and the back rampart.

Gazing up at the higher section of the wall, she studied the gaps in the stonework. It didn't take her long to determine the path that she would take. It wasn't the obvious path that had jumped out at her first. Following that quickly with her eyes, she soon realized that it ended about halfway up the wall. Her path was harder to see, to the untrained eye. It took her mere moments.

It took nearly as little time for her to mount the wall after deciding on her path. When Cyras decided on something, she didn't hesitate. The only other time she hesitated, she was forced to see the anguish, the torment, and the rage in the eyes of the man that she had taken everything from, twice.

Noiselessly, she dropped to the ground on the other side of the wall. She pressed her back against the rough stone as she crouched slightly. No one would sneak up on her as she surveyed her surroundings. She didn't get her reputation by being careless.

As if Amés sensed her desperation, snow brushed her cheek. An icy wind, mocking the pain deep within her, bit at her reddening cheeks and snatched at the tendrils of blonde hair peeking out from beneath her dark hood. Snow fell onto her nose, numbing the tip.

The doors to the keep opened, creaking in protest against the winter chill. Aromas of incense drifted out into the chilly night. Her stomach turned and tightened with the anticipation of feast. Bile lifted to her throat, and she swallowed the bits of bread from her supper back roughly.

Cyras held her breath, stilling every muscle in her body as she prepared for action. If she was discovered, she would have to flee, and everything would be for naught. While she could avoid it, she wouldn't kill to get to the King of Olessa. It would only convince him that she was bitter, that she was a threat, that she hadn't shed her brutality. Because she did not want to send him that message, she exerted masterful self control. Ironically, Cyras was likely the only one that wasn't a threat to him.

The silhouette of a man was framed in the flickering candle-light. Long blonde hair billowed in the wind, swirling around his sharp features. He strode from the arched opening of the keep and into the courtyard.

Vittoré, or had it been Amés, had smiled on her that night, bringing her quarry directly to her. It made the entire process easier, perhaps too much so. She remained hidden for a moment, questioning her fortuitousness. Nothing was ever so simple. She still had to convince him to leave with her. It would be no small feat.

Jorge rounded the wall again. He walked behind Vaene and joined the other royal guards behind their master.

Cyras would be asking Vaene to put trust into her after she had damaged it with her deception. She didn't think Vaene was capable of such magnanimity. She doubted anyone was. Still, she had to try. With a silent prayer to Amés, she stepped out of the shadow and approached the one who still held her heart.

"You have some fucking nerve sneaking in here," Vaene growled.

"Please," she begged, "hear me out, my lord." Speaking so weakly made her sick to her stomach, but she had to do what she thought was needed. She raised both of her hands, gesturing that she was unarmed and she meant him no harm.

"You have thirty seconds," he droned, uninterested.

"Niccolo will not give up," she warned him. "Your new betrothed, she is my sister. She's an assassin. She's going to kill you tomorrow, unless you leave with me now. I can protect you, but you have to come with me."

"Why should I believe a word you say, Tigress?" he sneered, putting extra venom in the title. "Who's to say that you won't kill me the first chance you get, when you have me away from my guards?"

"Firstly," Cyras threatened, losing her composure momentarily, "if I wanted you dead, you would be dead right now, guards or no guards. That's a simple fact."

The guards behind him fingered the hilts of their swords.

Jorge shook his head, causing the metallic, skull shaped beads capping the three thick strands of his facial hair to clink together. He understood what she said, and he agreed with it. The Black Tigress always struck when she meant to. She regained herself.

"But I deserve that," she said meekly. "My lord, I'm not asking you to love me. I'm not even asking you to trust me. What I'm asking is that you trust in the fact that Niccolo will stop at nothing to wear the crown. Trust the evil in his heart."

"You're asking me to be a coward," Vaene countered. "I won't turn tail and run. I don't need a woman, the woman who killed my family, to protect me."

Guilt seared within her, blinding her. She tried not to drift back to that moment. As clear as day, she could see the look in his eyes as she took everything from him with one swift stroke of her dagger.

Staring down at her hands, she could see the fountain of blood flow over her fingers, congealing in the spaces between. The agonizing remorse penetrated her skin, searing into her soul.

Blinking, the gore evaporated from her body like the apparition it was. Relief spread over her as if it were a soothing balm to an infected wound.

"Vaene, I love you," she admitted. If it was anyone else, she would find the situation humorous. Now that she could not have him, she professed her love for him. Twice. "I am probably the only one who doesn't want to harm you. Niccolo is after the regency, and he would employ any means to take it."

"I don't believe you," Vaene spat, refuting her once more. "Why did you lie to me about who you are? You had to know that I would find out someday, after you decided not to kill me. You had to know Niccolo would out you. Why did you continue to deceive me?"

Cyras looked down, ashamed in her past actions. Regret burned within her for lying to Vaene, but more so, she felt remorse for taking his family away from him. She had never intended on destroying the man, but she had had no choice.

"What was I to tell you, Vaene?" she pleaded. "That I am the woman who took your wife and son away from you, the woman you had spent a decade hunting? Would you have believed me? Would you have believed that I was sincere in my penitence? Obviously not, from the way you are acting now. Look, I'm not asking you to love me. I know that is more than I deserve. But, you have to trust me this once. If you ever loved me, believe me when I tell you that you are in danger."

"I never loved you," Vaene sneered bitterly. "I despise you and everything you stand for."

That was it. She had done everything she could. Vaene refused to believe her. She would have to go back to her hideout and form a plan. She still had every intention of saving him, even if that meant kidnapping the newly crowned king. His life was too important, and Niccolo could never be allowed to seize power.

Cyras turned away in frustration, but she was spun around violently by Vaene's hand on her arm. Before she could protest, he pressed his lips hard into hers. His body told the truths that his voice could not.

As he punished her with his mouth, shivers were sent down her entire body. Every time he kissed her before, it was a gentle reaction. He would sweep his lips along hers, making love to her with his mouth. Vaene would run his tongue along her lips and gently slip it between them.

Presently, there was no softness to their kiss. Heat drove his actions. They writhed like animals. Both were consumed with something that neither could understand. Something greater than both of them pushed them, wanting them to react in such a manner.

He ground his lips into hers, and her teeth shredded the inside of her mouth. The metallic, cloying tang of blood mixed with the minty taste of his mouth.

Vaene lifted his hands and cupped her cheeks. She could feel the warmth from his hands as the biting cold tried to force its way between them. In that punishing embrace, she knew the truth. He still loved her, and he would go through eternity loving her.

She was the woman who took everything from him. Everyone he loved died at her hands. He deserved a normal wife. At the very least, he deserve someone who did not have so much blood on her hands. Cyras could never change who she was. Death was as much a needed part of her life as the very air she breathed.

As he deepened the kiss, her mouth began to burn from the punishing pressure. She raised her arms and gripped his shoulders. He was not the only one seeking to possess the other. Cyras wanted him to know that she was his woman and he was her man.

"I'm sorry," she murmured into his mouth. The heat was quickly reaching a crescendo. Again, she shivered. She sighed into his body. "If I could take it back, I would. I didn't want to destroy you."

"But you can't, can you?" Vaene said, his words biting into her like a snake. Of course, the question was rhetorical. There was nothing she could say even if it weren't. "I'm sorry Cyras, but I can't leave. Even if what you say is true, I am needed here. Olessa needs me now more than ever. What message would that send to my subjects if I were to abandon them all to save my own hide?"

"That you are smart?" Cyras argued. "It's foolish to stand in the face of such a conspiracy. Don't you see? Niccolo won't stop until he has your head and your crown!"

"Cyras, I cannot abandon my kingdom to that man," Vaene insisted. It was clear that there would be no convincing him. He was far too noble to flee. "You know that, in my absence, he will abscond the throne. It would be no different for my subjects if I was alive or dead."

"Except that you will be alive!" Cyras cried, giving it one last desperate attempt to sway him. "Please, I couldn't go on if you died!"

"I am not so easy to kill," Vaene reassured. "I'll take into consideration what you've told me, and I will remain vigilant, but I must stay here. This is my place."

Cyras wanted to push the issue with Vaene, and she knew she had to. When she was around him, every single one of her beliefs were tossed out the window. She wanted him to realize that together they could protect the empire. After all, she would give up everything for him.

"Vittore be damned," she cursed softly, gazing at the man. "Why do I have to love such a stubborn man?"

"Do you think it is easier for me to love the woman who butchered my family?" he cried out. He tightened his hands on her cheek, causing her flesh to burn with pain. Cyras was used to pain being inflicted on her by men. "You held my little boy in your arms. He was an innocent, Cyras. Why did you slit his throat? Why did you take him away from the man you claim to love?"

She looked away. Instantly, she was taken back to that night. Regret burned in her soul for taking the life of his son. That boy was the reason why she did not _do _children. A monster killed children, and she was not a monster. Tears seared her eyes, blurring the man before her.

Cyras continued to remain silent, unable to answer Vaene's question. There really was nothing she could say to alleviate the pain in his eyes. She felt tears stream down her cheeks, and she cursed her weakness. He was the only man to see her in this state. Yet, he remained cold to her. He was within his rights. She had taken everything from him, stripped him of his only child, and she had no excuse.

"Just as I thought," Vaene murmured, the fire gone from his voice. "You've got nothing to say for yourself. You did what you did because you were told to. You made your choice, and you must live with it. Now, I will make mine. And I will live with that, too. I may not live long, but I will face my killer. Can you say the same?"

She stood in silence, her gaze downcast, as he and the watchmen turned and walked away from her. Tears fell to the snow-dusted ground at her feet. Everything had backfired. Silently, she whispered the words _I love you_ before turning away, crushed anew.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

The moon sat high in her perch in the sky, watching over the entirety of Olessa in her effulgent, ivory glory. The sun wouldn't rise for hours. Light snaked along the darkened alleyway, stretching the shadows before her like visions of misshapen monsters. It was a fitting image because only a calculating and cold creature, a monster, could do what she did and turn her back on everything.

_Everything_, she mused. _I am nothing like I once was._ The knot that she had since she had left Vaene tightened, lodging itself in the center of her being. Her breath hammered in her chest, making her breasts rise and fall in rapid succession.

Cyras grunted, making a numerical, staccato note, as she walked into the stepped corridor that separated the Merchant Quarter canal from the collective masses of destitute buildings in the Commons.

As if it was a spreading miasma, the stench of the Commons washed over her, overpowering her senses. She felt a wave of nausea as she passed a part of the open sewer that had become clogged. A strange tingle tickled the back of throat, and she fought it back. A sick splattering sound drew her attention, and she immediately wished that she hadn't looked. She placed her leather-clad hand over her mouth and nose and pressed down hard. It wasn't enough to stop the smell of fresh shit from filling her nostrils, though. Where she looked, it lay thick, building up more and more behind the blockage before it. Nobody cared enough about the commoners to have it cleaned up. Maybe Vaene would have done something about it, but it was probably already too late to ever find out.

The strong scents penetrated peasants clothing and skin like blood staining a butcher's apron. Even for someone like Cyras, the stink became a permanent fixture in her livery. She spent much time and energy trying to remove it.

Stopping the crisp, sharp grunts, she halted. Her breath hammered in her lungs as if her entire world stopped at that moment. Hovering her right foot in the air, heat assaulted her flesh. She stared at the muddy cobblestones leading into the Commons. She clenched her teeth, grinding them together in an effort to fight the need that was surging inside of her.

_Six_, her mind repeated as if it wasn't enough. Her face paled, resembling the snow-covered buildings and land. As if the coldness had snaked inside of her hood, her ears burned. The flesh itched like a thousand tiny insects were biting and stinging her.

Turning around, Cyras lifted her foot and placed it on the step above her current one. Her footfalls echoed in the narrow corridor. The sound reverberated through the thin entrance, spiraling around the middle of the buildings.

_Seven, _she continued in a rush of relief as her feet hit the stone ground. Her heart slowed its frantic beating, allowing her to take a large gulp of air.

Cyras kept to the middle of the road as she traversed the Commons, careful to stay as far as she could from the rivers of waste water, piss and shit, that ran along the sides. In the other districts, the sewers were directed through the pipes beneath the cobblestones in the middle of the roads. Here, all the detritus of society was laid bare, both in the environment and in the people.

To the side of the road, a lump moved, lifting its arm, and reached up to her with its bloody fingers.

Turning her gaze and narrowing her brow towards the figure in the road, she could barely tell where the man started and the fetid debris of the Commons ended. The distinctive smell of feces rose from him as if it were steam rising from the human waste beside him.

"Spare a silver, milady," his voice rumbled. Once more, he lifted his hand towards her. Crimson splotches spattered his tattered sleeve. A stream of filth flowed down his arm like a river. Rancid stink wafted off of him, filtering through the air.

Disbelief burned through her body, breaking upon her restraint as the ocean along the shore during a typhoon.

"Move," she murmured huskily; her words thick with a deep, husky purr.

_The world is truly upside down_, she thought to herself, _if a simple beggar could not recognize who he was propositioning. _There was a time, recently, where she didn't have to be side-tracked by simple beggars. Any legend spread like wildfire in the streets, and hers was no exception. The Black Tigress ruled the Commons with an iron first of fear.

However, there were days that she was magnanimous, spreading her coin to the barracks and the corrupt guards to keep the lower section of the city safe. While she assumed the role of Cyras Covelli and had the finest of drinks, foods, frocks, and spices, she would never forget where she came from. Peasants both respected and feared her.

Presently, she was not feeling particularly charitable. Hot rage seared her mind, threatening to spill out, just as she envisioned his blood would were it to. As she thought about her previous meeting with Vaene, her stomach lurched. The volcanic sensation danced from her stomach up to the center of her throat. Cyras blinked.

"It's just one silver, ladyship. Please, my wife and children needs clothes."

Cyras knew a lie when she heard it. If he did have a wife or a child, he would not have been sleeping apart from them, one pile of shit lying next to the other. It was another ploy to distract her from her destination. Even if she could have felt a little sorry for the man, she didn't have time for pity.

Reaching up, she grasped the edge of her hood and pulled it back with a strong tug. Her light hair tumbled out from the void cast by the hood. As the milky moonlight streamed over her, her hair shone like silver in the night.

His eyes widened, bulging in his pitted countenance. She could read the fear that poured like wine from his gaze. Terror drained the color from his face, rendering it ashen.

She shook her head, quickly. Cyras found no humor in this situation. This waste of humanity had already robbed her of valuable time. Niccolo was unrelenting. When he wanted something, he would work inexorably toward that goal. Knowing that she had to stay two steps ahead of the Grand Master of her order, the Shade, a slight delay in time could cost her her life or, worse, someone else's.

He wheezed, sharply; snorting a bubbling sound through his mucus-filled nose. "Ti-Ti," he stuttered as if the word refused to leave his mouth. Shrinking away from her as if she had attacked him, his back pressed against the wastes flowing in the gutter. "Tigress."

She passed him without another glance or thought, for that matter. All over the Commons, the landscape was littered with the homeless of all ages. They were mostly males, though. An unskilled woman could still sell her cunt, she thought with bitterness, but an unskilled man was worthless. Cyras ignored him as he continued to gape after her in horror.

In spite of it all, this was where she was most comfortable. She'd spent the beginning of her childhood in the slums of Glyndon, and while they were cleaner than the Commons of Olessa, it was still a dirty, miserable life. More than that, though, she felt safe. Niccolo wouldn't sully himself by wading through the mire of living garbage, as he so delicately put it. She didn't have to worry about encountering that bastard, at least. That didn't mean he wouldn't send one of his agents after her, but she was better than any of them.

Cyras _was_ being followed. She'd noticed the boy, trying too hard to be inconspicuous, back before she'd left the Noble Quarter. He could have blended himself into the sparse crowds flawlessly, and she would still have noticed him. No one in their right mind would travel from the Noble Quarter and Merchant District _into_ the Commons. She wasn't in her right mind.

Suddenly, guilt assaulted her and spread its malevolent tendrils over her. The knowledge that she had intentionally deceived someone that she loved poked at her thoughts as if it was a vulture plucking at the eyes of a bloated corpse. As he stood there and doubted her love and intentions, her hope shriveled into a blackened figment of what once was and threatened to die.

Her only hope for her lover's survival now rested on the assistance of the few assassins that were loyal to her and hated Niccolo. Trust did not come easy to any assassin, if at all. Cyras was no different. She hated hanging the outcome of anything on the ability of others.

There was only one she trusted enough with her life: Vincento, her only friend left in the order. If anyone else would have approached her with such a plan, she would have thought that they were sent to ensnare her, to collect her head. The Shade did not look upon failure kindly. Vincento was always loyal to her, however.

The only problem with any plan would be that the the newly crowned King of Olessa would not go along with anything she suggested. Her betrayal cast doubt upon her motives, making Vaene see threats that were not there and blinding him to the ones that were. Even though she was true in her actions, he would never consent to leaving the kingdom with her. He had already refused her that simply request.

Plans changed; that was a matter of life. Theirs evolved into something that was bigger than all the conspirators. The only problem was getting her love to trust her and the other assas— Her thoughts were halted.

"Read your fortune?" a feminine voice lilted, ripping the assassin from within herself.

Shock jolted through her as if the astonishment was a strike of lightning. She had always prided herself for her constant state of awareness. Cyras had been so distracted by her own contrived thoughts that she had not seen this other woman approach.

She silently chastised herself for her lack of awareness. Paranoia ate at her heart, coiling around her tightly like a serpent. Cyras knew that Niccolo would stop at nothing to possess or ruin her, likely both, and he would.

"What the hell are you doing in this shit hole?" Cyras questioned immediately, an edge to her voice.

When a war broke out between the kingdoms, several such women, known as Magi, would sit upon the King's Council. They offered insight to certain events that could secure the victory. Even when they did not sit upon the council, they still found work. Many noble-woman, who were thick with child, would pay inordinate fees to know the gender of their baby. Those women sought to secure a future for their house. Entire futures depended on the unusual magick, and those who practiced it understood it.

However, they did not venture into the Commons. None in that district could afford their brand of advice. Even though she seemed docile —young with dark eyes and hair — and not a threat, Cyras would not put it past Niccolo to send someone who was seemingly harmless.

Lifting her arms up and reaching out with her hands, she grasped the woman's upper arms tightly. As the magi squeaked, the assassin snarled and burrowed her nails into the exposed flesh. "I'll ask you one more time. Why. The. Hell. Are. You. Here?"

"Open your heart to love once, and the world, along with all whom you love, will be destroyed," the magi whispered. Her voice was eerie and strained, as if she was speaking over a great distance. Strands of her hair rolled back and forth, brushing against her supple skin. As her eyes rolled upwards into her head, she convulsed in Cyras' grasp. Ivory fabric swayed on her thin figure like leaves blown back and forth in a wind storm.

Again, the hot, ivory pain twisted around her heart. Moisture lined her eyelashes, threatening to spill forth. Never in her life did she think that the events of one night would cause an avalanche in her life. Images of the King of Olessa and his cold, unfeeling gaze scorched her insides, forcing her to remember the pain that razed the foundation of her soul.

What good would it do to mourn a relationship that she knew could never be? She felt torn in half, as if Vaene had torn a part of her away, thrown it deeply in a dungeon, and kept the only key securely around his neck.

"Open your heart to love again, and the world will be saved, though you cannot save the ones you love."

Remorse wrapped its grasping hands around her heart, squeezing the muscle until sharp pains radiated from her chest. Once before, she had felt that terrible, viscous emotion. She held the little boy in her arms, looked his father in the eyes, and slid the knife across the child's throat.

Like a dagger aimed straight at her lungs, air stuck in her body. Fury blistered inside of her, blackening her emotions beneath the torrid flood of unwanted thoughts. Before meeting Vaene in the market place months ago, she only had her regret. For her repentance and her own sanity, she would never take another contract against a child.

_It is not the only thing that I won't do_, she thought to herself. Cyras would never love another man. She would never let another man influence her actions or thoughts again. No, no other could hope to effect her like _he_ could. Vaene was the only one who inspired the emotions that were so foreign to her.

Just as quickly as the woman entered the trance-like state, it was over. She gazed at Cyras with her dark eyes wide with terror.

"How could you possibly know that?" Cyras asked her, focusing on the other woman. Her hands still grasped the flesh of the others shoulders; her nails creating thin, red lines in the skin.

"All possible outcomes of the future weave around us like paths in the forest. I am a simple guide, pointing out the trails. I know it is confusing. However, you have two options set before you. Open your heart to love one time, and the world, along with all whom you love, will be destroyed. Open your heart to love again, and the world will be saved. There is nothing you can do to save the ones you love. I am sorry."

She couldn't help but think the words did not apply to her. Oozing over her like slime, the guilt coated her body in a layer of shame. For her to love a second time, Vaene would have to see past her faults. More so, he would have to see past her actions a decade ago. He would have to know her secret and accept it. No, that was an impossibility.

Her quest for love ended when Niccolo outed herr. Vaene had both killed her and spared her life at the same time. Destiny had chosen for her to be alone. She would end the Shade's life, but she would be alone with her children, or she would die in the act. It didn't matter much to her anymore.

Cyras pushed the magi away in horror and disgust. She was shaken, and what followed shook her even more, down to her very core.

The magi seemed to shrink before her; her youth and beauty faded. She shriveled into a frail, old woman wrapped in a ratty shawl. Hairy warts popped out all over her wrinkling face. As if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, she tottered off, muttering incoherently to herself.

Setting her mouth into a grim line, the assassin turned her attention from the departing hag to her unwanted follower.

It was not beyond Cyras to lose the boy following her. In fact, it would have been a simple task for her, but she knew who had sent him. She didn't want to go into hiding, not anymore. There was one chance she could take to save the newly crowned king of Olessa. It would require her to stand up to the man who had tormented her for as long as she could remember. She would have to overcome the fears of a lifetime in order to save the man she loved, even if it was unrequited.

Fear wound inside her, rotating in her stomach and arching upward to her throat. It was the usual terror that accompanied thoughts of Niccolo. For three decades, Niccolo drowned her in a sea of bruises and insults only to leave her to recover for the next visit.

_No more!_ her thoughts howled at her. Courage bubbled inside of her, threatening to take control of her body. It wrapped her in its embrace like a comforting cocoon. She reached out mentally and grasped the imperceptible prowess.

Immediately, unpredictably, she turned around and strode directly toward the boy, taking purposeful steps. Her footsteps rang hollowly against the cobblestones, echoing in the tight space of the alleyway.

His eyes went wide, and he froze instantly in fear.

Before he could flee, she was upon him. Thrusting her right hand forward, she clutched him by his ragged collar. Her other hand rose. A dagger seemed to materialize in her grasp, and she held the point to his quivering throat.

He struggled against her, grasping at the leather of her sleeve. The tiny fingernails burrowed into the material as if they were miniature blades tipped with poison. The smells of despair and abject poverty drifted off of him, turning her stomach.

"I'm not going to ask who sent you," she growled, pressing the tip of the blade against his carotid. Any more pressure, and she would quickly be standing over a fresh, young corpse. "I'm not stupid."

Opening his mouth, a tiny squeak ejected from his body like a stream of vomit. He remained still in her grasp. If he would have moved, the edge of the dagger would have drank deeply from his neck.

In promise of future pain should he not cooperate, Cyras brought the blade up and dragged it across his cheek.

He hissed inwardly, and blood blossomed in a thin line, cascading down his young face. The sanguine liquid dripped from his chin and mixed with the refuse of humanity littering the stony ground.

"Go back to the Shade," she demanded. "Tell him that if he wishes to be rid of me, then he must face me himself. I'll even do him the favor of coming to him. Tell him I will be at his estate at dawn tomorrow. Tell him that this plan of his ends now. Can you manage that, boy?"

Nodding, droplets of blood sprung forth from his face. The crimson meat underneath his skin was exposed to the air.

"If you are luckier than I, he'll only kill you for your failure," she continued, not really acknowledging his answer. Violently, she shoved him to the ground.

As he brought his hands up, the blood spiraled from his face and plopped into the pile of human excrement beneath him. By the time he had gotten up and brushed himself off, regaining the small amount of composure that an apprentice of Niccolo's held, she was gone.

* * *

><p>Cyras had been waiting outside Niccolo's estate for two hours before the sun peeked over the eastern hills. She had nowhere better to wait for him to make his decision, and she knew he was doing just that. As the boy sprinted back to his master like a whipped dog, she had followed the boy. She saw him hesitantly enter the estate, but she hadn't seen him come out. She knew that that was because he was never going to. The Shade didn't suffer failure lightly. In fact, he didn't suffer it at all. The bumbling idiot would have gotten himself killed sooner or later.<p>

Gazing at the entrance, she tried to summon the courage that she would need to face her tormentor. Apprehension gnawed at her, building painfully within her stomach. She hated that feeling, hated the weakness of it. As she built a secure wall around herself, her fears cracked the foundations.

Niccolo appeared in the grand doorway of his not so modest estate. A pony-tail rested on his shoulder secured with a thin, ebony silk ribbon. A breeze pulled on his silken clothes, ruffling the soft material as it clung to his flesh.

She froze as she watched the dawn light stream down from the heavens and illuminate the wrinkled face of her master. This was a side to Niccolo that many did not see. He cursed time as it turned him into a feeble old man.

A wolfish smile graced his features, darkening the shadows on his haggard complexion. His grin curdled her blood and stomach.

Cyras felt a wave of panic as he strode down the staircase to her silently, the smile never leaving his face, his dark eyes never leaving hers. She began to doubt, her resolve burning away in the face of the man that had tormented her since she could remember. There was never a time that she hadn't been horrified of him.

Narrowing her gaze, she tried to calm the emotions inside her that were rising like the treacherous tide of the Blackening Sea to the East. She was still terrified now, but she knew that she had to act. A part of her that she tried to deny for so long knew that Niccolo would not be content until all of his plans came into fruition. Vaene's life hung in the balance. When he accomplished the death of the newly crowned king of Olessa, the Shade would turn to her children. Camilla and Carmine would cease to be of use to him, and he would either kill them or worse. Suddenly, her life didn't matter, anymore.

Fighting the urge to break down and give in to her master, she set her jaw, unable to give voice to her intentions just yet. Guilt spiked within her, causing her to hesitate. She would not cave to his threatening demeanor.

"People are talking, Tigress," Niccolo droned in the voice he would so often use before "teaching her lessons". Those lessons often left her bleeding and unable to walk for two days.

"_People are talking, Tigress," the elder man hissed. His lips pulled backwards into a snarl, betraying his usual deceptive calm manner._

_She averted her gaze from him. Her light hair swung forward, covering her eyes. Clutching her hands into fists, she dug her nails into the palm of her hands. Blood blossomed in a narrow band. _

"_I know you have been sneaking out to meet that boy," he continued to press her. His back straightened as he pulled himself up to his full height. Fire seared deeply within his gaze, roiling on itself._

"_I-"_

"_I don't want any excuses, Tigress! You're mine! " he bellowed at the young girl. Swinging his hand backwards, his fist slammed into her yielding young flesh. _

_The child shrank, winding her arms around her chest. _

"_I have to make sure that you won't forget it," he whispered as he unlatched the buckle on his belt. _

_Not this time_, her mind screamed. This time she would face her fears because she had something worth fighting for. Long ago, Niccolo had convinced her that she wasn't worth any more than a hole to fuck. She wasn't doing this for her. She was doing it for Vaene and her children. And if she happened to find redemption in the act, even if she failed, all the better.

"You sniveling, shit-nosed, little maggot," Cyras sneered, trying to stoke his ire. "You seed-swilling, little dick, backender. You think I came to talk? You're more fucking stupid than I gave you credit for. Do they call you the Shade because you don't have a shadow of a fucking clue?"

His eyes flared dangerously, but he didn't move. That tipped his hand, if only slightly. Cyras surmised that he wasn't alone, wisely. There would be at least two other men with him, likely just inside the manse. She would have to keep goading him, to get him to move too far away from his protection.

Reaching downward, she placed her hands on the hilts of her daggers. She recognized the crazed look in his eyes, having seen it lurking there for as long as she could remember. Again, the urge to bend to his whims overcame her. Clenching her teeth together, she focused her attention on those behind him.

Inside the estate's doors, she could make out the shadowy shapes of four men. Their hoods were pulled up, and they blended into the dim shadows rapidly vanishing to the light. She knew that he wouldn't have faced her alone.

"Still a little Glorendine gutter rat, despite my best efforts," Niccolo responded, his lips quivering in the joy of insulting her. "The only thing I managed to accomplish was turning you into a Glorendine gutter whore. A slight improvement. At least your cunt is worth something. Too bad the mouth can't be fixed."

As she continued to survey her surroundings, taking stock of the threats (seen or imaginary), she tuned out his diatribe. She looked up at the darkened windows and saw two more men. They had their crossbows trained on her.

A realization overcame her, growing in its revelation. The simplicity of the thought surprised her.

"You're a coward, Niccolo." Cyras glared coldly as she spoke with the conviction of her sudden discovery. In the moment of her epiphany, the fear melted away. She smiled at him, and he knew immediately; his hold on her was broken.

"Kill her!" he shouted suddenly; fear palpable in his voice. "Dispose of this trash!"

Cyras didn't wait for his retinue to converge. She charged up the stairs, leaping at Niccolo with her blades drawn. Cyras didn't expect to survive, but she didn't need to. She only had to kill Niccolo. Without a head, the guild would collapse into itself as everyone fought with each other in the power vacuum.

She noticed the two guards in the window first. They leveled crossbows at their shoulders.

_Thwack._

Two bolts were propelled towards her. One sailed over her head as she ducked. She still moved forward.

Cyras spun away from the second, but she was not fast enough. It grazed her upper arm, slicing through her assassin's garb and gashing the flesh. She didn't stop moving forward.

Screaming primally, she lunged at Niccolo.

He drew a dagger. Niccolo knew that he would have to protect himself, at least until the guards got there.

She collided with him and slashed at the side of his neck.

His shoulder took the blow, though, as his arm lifted to deflect her attack. He cried out in pain as the dagger slashed into the flesh, as it struck hard against bone. Yet, her aim was not true. He would survive.

Cyras brought the blade back for another attack. The dagger shimmered, silver and red, in the early morning light. As her weapon screamed in its descent, it was stopped short. Two large hands gripped her forearm. She'd lost her chance to kill Niccolo.

As the guards pulled her off their master, Cyras struggled. Her hair flashed brilliantly in the sun's gaze.

One man held her arms, the other her legs. She flailed in their grasp, almost breaking free, but was unable to escape. They held her tightly as Niccolo stood, gloating, before her.

"Did you really think you could kill me, Tigress?" Niccolo murmured. He lifted his left hand and caressed her cheek softly. Dirt clung to his leggings, blackening the knees of the silken trousers.

She jerked her head away from him. Nausea spread through her body, heating her as if she was in the middle of an inferno.

With a disgusted look, he reached out and dragged his blade across Cyras' cheek.

Searing pain enveloped her face. Blood flowed freely from her skin in a thin line, cascading down her cheek, curving around her jawline, and dripping from the point of her chin.

Suddenly, a cerulean mist began to coalesce around her. Inexplicably permeated by a calmness that she knew wasn't her own, she stopped fighting. She stopped thinking about Niccolo. Cyras stopped worrying about revenge. The only thought that occupied her mind was Vaene. The only feeling that surged through her was the intense purity of love.

Niccolo drew back his dagger, meaning to plunge it into her chest. The tip of his blade glittered, reflecting the hatred in his eyes. With her fear of him vanished, she knew that he understood that he would never be safe from her. At that moment, she realized that she was the best assassin in all of Arathea.

It didn't matter. These were her last moments on the planet. Soon, she would meet Vittore and be thrust into his embrace. The only thing that concerned her was Vaene. Serenity overcame her.

Cyras' pupils dilated, and crimson coated her green eyes. The liquid swirled inside of her gaze, rotating painfully within the woman. Still, she could not feel anything besides affection for the man she was giving her life for.

Blood dripped from Niccolo's nostrils, trickling over his thin lips and onto the cobblestones of his estate. His arm arced upwards.

With a sharp inhale of breath, Cyras felt her body leave her. Iciness overtook her, spreading to every cell of her body as if she was being encased in a glacier. She was content to be judged for her crimes against Vaene.

The man nearly fell over when the blade wasn't stopped by the force of hitting her body.

Cyras was gone. The only thing that remained was a thick cloud of blue mist in the vague shape of a human form. Vapors gyrated violently in that form, swirling vigorously. Her livery puddled in a heap on the ground like water.

"Vittore!" he shouted and stabbed the dagger upwards to the heavens. "She was mine! Why do you deny me? Vittore!"

The mist rushed forward, ferociously expanding to a climax. In a deafening roar, it billowed forward and charred the grass, the walls of the manse, the flesh of the guards behind him, and, even, Niccolo's skin, itself.

* * *

><p>Darkness surrounded the lanky man, bathing him in its solitude. A single candle sat beside the long, copper basin. His bright eyes glittered dangerously in the low light reflected from the long taper. Durzo Blint touched the water with his hand, testing it. Scowling, he stared into the clear depths. Tufts of blond hair fell forward into his eyes.<p>

The house was relatively quiet. Durzo preferred it that way. It gave him time to examine his thoughts and to wind down after the day. Faint, guttural snortings of the animals in the other room drifted through the paper thin, ruined walls.

His safe-house was not impressive, by any means. Blint preferred it that way. When establishing a hide-out, one should choose the least expensive home in the district, he knew. Through societal stigma, he was virtually invisible. No one wanted to be associated with the poorest of the territory.

Turning his attention back to the water, he thought it was acceptable. Lifting his arms, he stripped off his clothing piece by piece. He folded the frocks perfectly and place them neatly on the chair next to the room's entrance.

As he stepped towards the basin, he stopped. His brow knitted together.

A strange blue mist amalgamated in the air above him. The miasma twisted forward and twirled backwards. Like a dancer, it spun around, pivoting into itself. Iciness seeped into the air and nipped at his exposed flesh.

He stood and tilted his head upward towards the phenomenon trying to study it. It was unlike anything he'd ever seen. And, in his long life, he had seen some strange events.

Suddenly, a woman's form materialized in the center of the mist. Her legs were curled up to her chest as her hands wrapped around her knees. Light-colored hair clung to her shoulders and the tops of her cleavage.

The vapors containing the strange being burst forward. Wind from the explosion ruffled his hair, blowing it back from his forehead. Sapphire fog rushed forward and peeled chunks of wood from the walls.

She collapsed on top of him. Like him, she was naked. Durzo didn't have to see her to be able to tell that. He could feel the soft warmth between her legs touching him. Her upper thighs pressed against the outside of his.

Turning her head back and forth quickly, she looked around her wildly. Strands of her hair whipped against her sharp features. Wisps ran down the length of her jawline. She was clearly disoriented.

He studied the woman, judging if she was a threat or not in a split second.

Blood trickled down her cheek, pouring from a fresh wound. Puckered skin curled around her sides, licking the flesh underneath her breast. A dotted, jagged line skipped across her cleavage.

As his gaze flickered down her body, there were more scars. Some were tiny, puncture holes where the skin had healed. Others were much longer. They traversed her flesh in every direction. A couple on her stomach crossed older ones that he knew were caused by a dagger. On her right side, there was a crescent shaped one, and a chunk of her flesh was removed.

"Get off" she yelled in a language Durzo hadn't heard in more than a century. The inflection brought back the memories of a time he had spent so long trying to forget. She moved forward, causing fire to ignite in his loins.

"You're the one on top of me!" Blint argued, using what he remembered of that language. Durzo had an affinity for languages. He rolled his hips underneath of her, sliding himself against her.

Her eyes widened, opening in shock. Then, the initial shock turned to revulsion. Disgust lurked deeply in her gaze.

"Or, do you want me to 'get off' in a different way?"

She sat up, inadvertently pressing herself harder against him. A hiss escaped her lungs and rushed pass her lips. With the ferocity of a trapped animal, she swung her arm to slap him.

Durzo caught her wrist. "You don't want to do that," he warned. He squeezed, feeling the tender bones beneath the flesh shift delicately in his grasp.

Holding her arm tightly, Durzo searched her feral eyes intensely. She had the eyes of a fighter, the spirit of a killer. His eyes flicked downward. Besides the scars, she had the body of a dancer. She used his momentary distraction to renew her struggling. He squeezed her wrist with the power of his Talent, and she stopped, straining not to vocalize her pain.

Suddenly, a large, gleaming sword dropped from the air above them. It twirled through the air, end over end, and the point stuck into the floor next to his head. Keeping his grip strong, he turned his gaze quickly to the sword, then back to her eyes.

"I'm going to ask you one question before I let go of you," he stated calmly. "You better consider telling me the complete truth, if you value your life."

She scowled but acquiesced with a defeated shrug.

"Who the fuck are you?"


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

Cyras looked down at the man beneath her, studying him briefly. She scanned him for threats, and while he was unarmed, she knew that he was highly dangerous even in the predicament that he was in now.

His eyes flashed with the experience that only a seasoned killer could recognize. Lithe muscles flexed and strained with the tension of a set spring. He clutched her delicate wrist, bending the bones beneath her skin painfully.

Fiery agony seared her mind, blinding her to her thoughts with pain. It clutched her heart and would not abate. She hated feeling helpless, but it was what she was feeling. In the face of this man, this unforeseen problem in her life, she tried to keep her wits about her.

Trying to put her location together, a single thought blossomed as if it were a rose opening to the sun. He understood her, so she must still be somewhere in the Olessan Empire, she reasoned. If she was in Glorendt, he would be talking in their language. If she was in the barbaric eastern kingdom, he would be talking more with his body than with his mouth.

While she knew she was still in the Olessan Empire, she didn't know exactly where. That revelation would come later. Looking up into his light colored eyes, she reckoned that that was not her immediate problem. Tigress would not allow herself to be disgraced by being killed while nude.

She had to think fast, to cloud his thoughts. Shame spread deep in her stomach, contorting itself with the desire to be free from the man who imprisoned her. Cyras was an assassin who prided herself in her work and never used her sexuality to do her job, but she had also never been this close to a threat without a weapon or plan. Being caught off guard, she was forced to go against her common practices to survive. In her mind, at least.

Looking down at the strange man, her expression changed. In that split instant, she recognized him for who he was. It both intrigued her and frightened her.

He was an ugly man, by all definitions: pointed features, dimpled scars on his cheeks, ragged beard. Still, there was an intensity in his eyes. It snared her attention and refused to let go. This man reminded her of Vaene. That made what she was about to do both easier and harder, at the same time.

As she thought of Vaene, the urgency to return to the capital overcame her. Morose flooded within her, blanketing her soul with the indisputable knowledge of her own failure. It tainted her and eroded her resolve away into nothing. If she did not return, she knew the consequences. Her love, the man she had devoted herself to, would die. That decrepit, old lecher would win.

Exorcising the ghosts of the past that haunted her present, she set her mind on the most obvious course of action. Cyras rolled her hips and leaned forward, bringing her face to within mere inches of his. She could feel his warm breath against her face, could smell the hint of garlic on it, as she steeled herself for what she was about to do. Abandoning any other possibility of escape, she closed the remaining space between them, pressing her lips against his passionately, violently.

Though it started as a feint to lower his guard, the kiss lasted longer, went further into the depths of passion, then she had intended. Cyras wondered why, and dismissed that wonder in the same moment. She was dangerously close to abandoning herself to a man she'd only just met, and that frightened and excited her in equal measure.

At least the kiss served its purpose; he released his grip on her wrist. His hand raced gingerly across the flesh of her arms, arcing to her upper arms, and drifting to her collarbone.

Her teeth nipped at his bottom lip, pulling the spongy flesh between her teeth. The tip of her tongue darted past her teeth and brushed against his, softly.

The steams of their passion rose and clouded the mirror adorned to the wall. In its reflection, she could see their writhing movements as their faces glided together.

Cyras was so engrossed in this stranger that she didn't notice it. She could feel the cool breeze from the other room on her skin and hear the livestock in one of the rooms adjacent to that one. To Cyras, this foreigner to the Olessan Empire was the only thing that mattered.

She wasn't concerned by the fact that he was a stranger. She'd fucked plenty of people that she didn't know when Niccolo forced her into whoring. Cyras wasn't ashamed or embarrassed, either. The thought that chilled her to the core was that she was enjoying what she was doing at that moment.

Turning her head to the side, she pressed her lips against his and felt the sweet resistance of him against her. The light tang of garlic filled her mouth, searing the memory of the kiss into her mind. She didn't think that she would ever forget this man. How could she? Her mind's diversion reached into her, blocking her from any other thoughts.

Over the course of two decades of being forced to work the sheets, she had been with thousands of men. Like a sea of disgust, their many faces blended together into one shape. Not once did she allow herself to enjoy it. To enjoy it would mean to losing the one bit of her that was hers, the part that Niccolo had never defeated.

She was attracted to him, and she was never attracted to anyone before. The knowledge brought heat to her cheeks as he moved his mouth against hers, showing her the expertise that he possessed.

_Well, with the exception of one man_, she thought to herself.

Regret surged in her soul, grasping her within its sullenness. With this kiss and her billowing emotions, she was betraying Vaene and herself. She swore that she would never feel desire for another, especially after what he done to her.

With the stark realization that the situation was spiraling out of her control, Cyras pulled away, keeping a look of hot desire in her eyes to match his. She raised an eyebrow coyly, not letting on to what she was about to do.

Without giving a warning, she started to lean back, putting her hands behind her to tumble off of him. She felt a resistance at the apex of her thighs, but she thought nothing of it. Her only desire was putting distance between herself and the man that, inexplicably, made her feel things that only one other man had.

"No!" the man snapped. His voice rumbled gruffly in the darkness.

She tilted her head and look down at him, his smoldering, intense gaze clashing with hers. The only thing in her mind was removing herself from him. Cyras needed to stow the sensations that he gave her in a small box and shove it into the deepest recesses of her mind.

"Don't move that way!"

It was too late. She was committed.

As her back arched, her hands reaching for the floor behind her, she felt it, but neither of them was able to stop it. In abrupt suddenness, his new found excitement slipped inside of her.

A scorching pain erupted from her nether regions. It exploded outward, blistering into agony beneath her flesh.

Cyras inhaled sharply at the burst of sensation. Hesitating involuntarily, she couldn't help but notice that, despite her best efforts, her body responded with waves of pleasure. It hadn't felt this way with anyone other than Vaene. That terrified her, especially after what the king of the Olessan Empire had done to her.

For a moment, neither of them moved, too shocked from the suddenness of the penetration. They both became locked in an internal struggle over mastery of their desires. Cyras was slowly succeeding in that. It appeared to be different for him. At least, that was what she could see in his eyes.

His hands lurched, gripping onto the tops of her hips. The fingertips rested beneath the large pouches attached to her ebony belt, the only clothing that transferring through the misty portal.

"Let go of me," she commanded, finally back in control. She pulled to try to get up, but he didn't relinquish his grasp. Trying to break free, she squirmed. Inadvertently, the motion sparked a resurgence of the unusual pleasure, radiating outward from her womanhood.

Fear spouted within her, spreading through her body like an acrid mist. She found herself recalling Niccolo and every facet of his aging skin.

"I mean it," she demanded, keeping adept control of her tone and hiding the inflorescent trepidation beneath the facade. Her voice was flat, unfeeling, not even tinged with the slightest desire.

He responded by rolling her over, so that he was on top of her, staring at her with those determined eyes.

_Damn his eyes_, she thought. They may not have been the same color as her lover's, but the look in them, the passion and desire, almost made her forget that it _wasn't_ Vaene.

Anger roiled within her, mixing with the dread, and threatened to overwhelm her. Her thoughts stumbled onto the king of Olessa, careening like an out of control carriage.

"You shouldn't start something with no intention to finish," he growled, his voice thick with desire.

Shock roared through her, blending with the other alien emotions. The coldness of the wooden floor matched the iciness within her.

_He thinks that I want this_, she realized, appallingly. She conceived startlingly that her body's response was the main reason for that. It was eagerly accepting him, like a familiar lover.

However, he wasn't Vaene. Even if he was, she wouldn't have wanted this, not after what Vaene had done to her. He stripped her of her dignity, making her part of the common rabble. Yet, that was not the worst thing he had done.

After finding out who she was, he withheld the love he felt deeply for her. Even after all the abuse from her tormentor, Cyras thought herself impervious to that kind of pain. Like a parasite, Vaene had wiggled into the center of her heart, sucked all of the life from her, and left her to die. He simply did not care enough.

The thought immediately cooled her desire. She tilted her head back and stared at the high ceiling.

At the moment, this man was no different than the nameless others she had been intimate with. She knew what he wanted. It was what every other man, including Vaene at one point, had wanted from her.

"Just be quick about it," she uttered, stolidly. Ice coated her tone as if it were frost on a sharpened blade. Her limbs splayed like a lifeless animal.

A heavy, rough sigh expelled from his lungs and forced itself pass his lips. The sulfuric smell of garlic fanned her cheek, causing her to turn her face to the side and away from the odor.

"Don't make too much of a mess."

"Fuck," he muttered, exasperated, as he rolled off of her. "All I wanted was to take a bath. It's a rare occurrence that a naked woman should materialize from the air in my bath."

The cool air quickly forced itself onto her flesh. She shivered in disappointment from the lack of contact.

He muttered something underneath his breath. The words came out as gibberish to her. She couldn't understand the dialect, tone, or meaning.

"What?" Cyras asked, having heard his utterance but still not comprehending the strange language.

He looked at her, surprised that she had heard. In her line of work, she perfected her ability to hear the conversations that others wished to be secret.

Of course, he didn't know that about her. There were things that even her confidant didn't know. None could understand the feelings that were lurking deeply iwithin her soul.

"Not important," he responded, offhandedly.

_Not important? _she chided, silently. Of course, it was important. He had to know that she didn't recognize his language. Frustration ate away at her, and she wondered at that emotion. Cyras prided herself in her calm demeanor. There was only one other who could strip away her facade.

As her blinding ire mounted, she could not help but notice the similarities between this man and Vaene. They both had caustic personalities. Like her love, this one seemed to want to skim away the fatty layer of meaningless details and get to the meat of the matter.

"I'm going to be asking the questions. We'll start with something simple. What's your name?"

Cyras put on an air of confidence, cloaking herself in bravado, in spite of the fact that she was still naked. His intense, soul rending glare was fixed on her eyes, anyway. It was strange for a man to be staring into her eyes instead of her other, more noticeable assets.

Taking a deep breath, she determined it safe to offer up the requested information in full, for now. If they were in the Olessan Empire, or one of the neighboring kingdoms, one name was attached to the other, thanks to Vaene.

Agony twisted within her as she remembered Vaene. As she lay there, on the washroom floor with this foreigner, Niccolo's plan was likely in motion. While she had warned Vaene about the threat he was under, he was still in great danger. Her sister was not as skilled as she was, but Violetta could maim or kill the Olessan King.

Gazing into his light blue eyes, she tried to forget the anguishing guilt. To get home to Olessa, she needed her wits about her.

She would not give away all of her identities to this stranger. Cyras knew that she had to ensure some type of innominate titles. If she needed to slip away from him, she would use one of those so he couldn't find her.

"I am Cyras Covelli of Lucci, once Duchess of Lucci and Stewardess of the Olessan Empire." she answered with a twinge of pride in her voice. She tilted her head to the side, turning her chin up at the title. "I am, also, known as the Black Tigress. That is why I am duchess and stewardess no longer."

"Sounds like there's a story there," he probed.

"Not important," Cyras mocked, feeling slightly dismayed. It was clear that he didn't recognize the title. Disbelief sank into her like the teeth of a haunting predator. She knew immediately that she wasn't anywhere in the Olessan Empire or the surrounding areas.

It wasn't the only reason that she didn't want to answer him. Cyras didn't want the anxiety of Vaene's rejection to surface again. She knew she needed to have a clear mind to get out of this situation and return home. Because of her attack, her master would set his plans into motion sooner than he had previously planned

.

"I'll decide what is and isn't important," he snapped, "and I am asking the questions."

"Do you have a name, or should I just call you _Inquisitor_?" she asked, ignoring his outburst.

"If you must know my name," he drawled as his stare flicked down to her body and back briefly, "I think it's a fair trade for what just happened. I'm Durzo Blint."

"Do you have anything I could cover myself with, Durzo Blint?" Cyras asked, feeling very naked after the glance, however brief it was. He was privy to all of the scars that Niccolo had inflicted upon her. Even under the best of circumstances, she hated to be exposed. These were far from the best circumstances.

The blood that had oozed from the wounds on her face and shoulders had begun to congeal. Pain radiated from the injuries, crawling beneath her flesh like burrowing maggots. She felt emotionally exhausted, as if everything was too much to take.

"Where am I?"

"More questions."

"Forgive my inquisitiveness, _my lord_," she sneered. Her green eyes lit with an internal fire. He was increasingly frustrating her. Anyone else would have been promptly dealt with. She had a feeling that this man was important to discovering where she was, a perhaps, how to return.

"Yes and Cenaria," he stated. "My turn. Where did you come from? Where were you precisely before you came? What were you doing? What do you remember? Tell me everything. There are towels over there." He nodded to the left.

Cyras stood, carefully trying to remain modest in her movements. The situation had quickly spiraled into a land of confusion, and she was lost within it. Her mind stumbled to come to terms with what she had learned. It was just a small fact, but it was soul shattering to her.

_Cenaria?_ She questioned herself. Flashes of the gilded map of Arathea in the order's hideout glided through her thoughts like ribbons on a dancer's body. She knew that there was no city of that name in all the areas surrounding the Olessan Empire. Even the Great Empire, where numerous cities dotted the landscape, did not have a one by that name.

She could feel his gaze on her backside. She felt awkward before Durzo. Always, when she was naked before a man, she was completely in control. It was the only way that she felt safe enough to do what Niccolo commanded of her. Cyras always held the advantage, even when it didn't seem so. They may have possessed her body, but she would always control the movements and her mind.

Vaene was the only other that had caused her to feel so vulnerable, until she encountered this man. She didn't think that she shared the same feelings that she latched onto with the king of Olessa with Blint. For one, she had just met this stranger. Emotions, with the exception of what she felt for Arturis, couldn't develop so quickly.

Secondly, Cyras was never an emotional woman. To perform her job with the excellence that added to the legend of the Black Tigress, she neither loved, nor hated her marks. Any sort of emotion could make her feel pity for those that were to die and cause Cyras' blade arm to stall. After her botched contract with Vaene's son and wife, she never failed.

Turning her back, she searched for a towel. The linen sheets felt rough beneath her fingers. She wondered how many bars of soap he had. It would take more than one to wash her until she was acceptably clean after what had happened to her.

Knowing that he would have a perfect view of her backside, and the many scars on her back, in the lamplight, her face burned. She had to bear it, however. It was much better that he see her ass than her reddened face.

She was glad to get away from that damned gaze, those eyes that spoke of boundless wisdom. Cyras knew she couldn't pretend or lie to those eyes. They could see right through her, and it terrified her beyond all measure. She hated being under that scrutinizing gaze.

"Wait!" Durzo barked.

Cyras jumped, feeling the harsh word bite at her insides. She winced, chastising herself internally. Like an immovable stone, calmness always radiated from her. Of course, the stillness within her was a farce. As much as she hated to admit it, Vaene had released something inside of her. She couldn't capture and hide it away again.

_Damn Vaene to the Death-plane_, she thought to herself.

"You're going to have to wait. I don't want you bleeding all over one of my towels. Let me clean your wounds. Your shoulder looks like it needs stitching."

Her heart raced, beating as if it were trying to rip out of her chest. Fear fluttered in her belly, growing wings as he sat up. Never before had she had someone care to her wounds. An assassin that couldn't was a dead assassin. Cyras was too skilled for that to happen.

_No_, her mind protested. He would not see to her wounds; she wouldn't allow it. Cyras would take care of her own injuries before she would allow another to touch her.

"I suppose Kylar might have a change of clothes here," Durzo added as if thinking aloud. "If he doesn't, I'll have to box his ears for being under-prepared."

Cyras cast a quick glance over the wound on her arm. It stung painfully now that she had noticed it and the rush from her ordeal had passed. The agony crawled under her flesh, raced down her arm, and arced around her fingertips like lightning.

Containing the turmoil inside, she removed any hint of emotion from her gaze. Cyras wouldn't show weakness before someone, specifically if it were a man. She would seize control of the situation and hold onto it with steadfast determination. Even when there was no clear threat, she was always looking for advantages. Even with those few she called friends, when she was around them, she would visualize the most effective and efficient way to kill them at all times.

"It's barely a scratch," she scoffed.

The wounds, themselves, looked far worse than they were. Flesh gaped raggedly along the edges of the wound on her arm. The crimson tissue beneath would show itself when she moved her arm, peeking out like the meat of a clam. Still, Cyras had suffered far worse at the hands of her master. A scratch from a barbed bolt would not hinder her.

"I can take care of it. I take care of myself just fine. I certainly don't need some pig of a man to take care of me, thanks."

Durzo raised an eyebrow, obviously seeing that, while he was the immediate target for her insult, he was not the fuel behind it.

It didn't matter much to her what this fool wanted or thought of her. He was a stranger, someone who would be out of her life in the blink of an eye.

"Are you a homosexual?" he asked. Sternness coated the edge of his voice.

Cyras stopped cold, stunned by the forthrightness. While Vaene and Niccolo were blunt men, they had never accused her of being a lapwhore. No one had the audacity and courage to call the Black Tigress a homosexual.

"Are you fucking stupid?" she spat, the indignity lining her tone in a protective layer.

"It's just a question," Durzo responded as he stood up. His muscled stomach rippled in the movement. He crossed over to her, gesturing her to show him his arm. Tilting his head down, his gaze pierced into her, reaching deep, and refused to let her go.

With him towering over her, she suddenly felt more vulnerable than ever. It was his damnable eyes. They seemed to see inside of her. Again, she was reminded that there would be no hiding truths from him. There could be no deceiving this man. She meekly offered her wounded arm.

"That's a bit more than a scratch," he said as he turned the arm in his hand. "It cut into the muscle. I'll stitch it up for you." He paused, waiting for an objection.

Pain radiated from the wound, making her breath hitch in her throat. She did not want to rely on anyone to take care of her injuries. After all, she was capable of doing it herself.

_No_, she thought. She wouldn't protest. He wanted to sew her wound closed, and while she was not used to such a desire from a man, she would be a fool to overlook it. Another person could treat the injuries better.

"Who hurt you?"

Cyras looked down, hesitant to answer the question. Her confrontation with Niccolo had been for nothing. All her preparation was wasted. Nothing came of it. Somehow, despite her planning, he had survived the encounter. This doomed Vaene, cinching his fate like the last lacing on a corset.

A pain spread through her chest, and she quickly suppressed it. She wasn't going to think about Vaene. Even after he took everything from her, she tried to save him. Now, he was lost, because he let himself be lost. She couldn't be held responsible for what was going to happen.

The agony erupted in her chest again, threatening to release a sob from her throat. It was not exactly right. As much as she liked to pretend that Vaene's fate meant nothing to her, sorrow colored the edges of her perception.

"It doesn't matter," she murmured without looking up.

"There won't be any secrets," Durzo said. "You're dangerous enough as it is without them."

While he spoke, her thoughts were not with him. There was a slim possibility that she could return in time to save Vaene's life, still. Doing so, there would be no encounter with Niccolo this time. She would have to deal with her own flesh and blood.

"Now, I'm going to ask you again. Who did this to you? Was it Khalidorans?"

"No," she answered, not knowing what a Khalidoran was. Her eyes darted around as she worked at the answer to his question. She'd worked herself up to face Niccolo, but the fact remained, with him alive, she was terrified. He managed to escape her blades. Niccolo was still alive. She didn't know where she was. Cyras never heard of Ceneria. That didn't mean that Niccolo hadn't.

_He would come for me_, Cyras thought. Like any of his horses, his estate, and the guild, itself, Niccolo owned her. She knew that he would stop at nothing to possess her. Niccolo would follow her to the ends of Arathea if it meant reclaiming his most prized possession, his precious Black Tigress.

She realized that she was staring directly at Durzo's crotch. She averted her gaze as her face flushed.

_What the fuck's wrong with me? s_he interrogated herself. Coming to the conclusion that it must have been an aftereffect of what had happened to her, Cyras pushed the thought away. It surely wasn't her normal behavior.

"My master's men did it to me," she confessed at last. The words seemed to pull from her mouth on their own. "You don't need to know his name."

His brow furrowed, and his forehead wrinkled.

"Answer me one more question. Where is Cenaria? Are we close to the city-state of Olessa? Are we close to the Olessan Empire?"

"There is no Olessa or the Olessan Empire, not in the entire world," he said with a shrug. "Let me see your arm."

Disbelief shot through her. It amplified as time passed. Shadowing the pain spreading from her shoulder and cheek, she stared into the man's glittering gaze.

"What do you mean 'there is no Olessa or the Olessan Empire?'" she murmured. The skepticism coated her voice as if it were a thick poison. She elbowed him in the solar plexus. "I was just there!"

"You are on the continent of Midcyru. There is no Olessa. I've never heard of such a place. What do you call the world there?"

Cyras was growing more frightened by the moment. The fear of Niccolo was being inexorably replaced by the fear of the unknown. She was in some mysterious place, possibly another world all together.

Her heart raced in her chest, threatening to burst from her ribcage. Breathing in deeply, she tried to keep the world from spinning.

Arathean beliefs spoke of other planes of existence. First, there was the mortal plane, the Arathean-plane. It was comprised of the physical world. It was here that people lived and loved, worshiping their chosen deities. Even then, the vener would shape their lives.

The Death-plane contained all of the deities and mortals that defied the Great Ones and the vener. It is there that the damned would burn for eternity as torture was inflicted upon their souls. The ven, the soul's life energy, would be drained away at an agonizingly ponderous pace.

Ven existed in everything in the Arathean-plane and the Death-plane. However, on the Ven-plane, the vapors are more prevalent. It is a garden of paradise, the place that a soul stops before it is born again onto the Arathean-plane.

Was this world one of the planes? Perhaps, she did die at Niccolo's hands. For her crimes against Vaene, she would have been cast into the Death-plane and tortured. Was this man, whose intensity reminded her of Vaene, her torturer? There would be no escape for her. That scared her more than thoughts of Niccolo.

_No_, she challenged without a word to him. If this was the Death-plane, he would call it as such. Instead, he had called it Midcyru.

Widening her eyes, she continued to stare at Blint. Even as he held her, Cyras' body shook, swaying back and forth as if she was a delicate sapling in the middle of an autumnal gale.

What had the power to shift her from one plane to another? A vener, perhaps, or one of the Great Ones. The fact that she had drawn the attention of such a being chilled her to the bone.

"We call the world Arathea," she responded at last. Her voice grew low, almost as if she was speaking across the Planes of Existence, themselves. Her throat ached, her mouth drying like a snail in the summer sun. "This isn't Arathea, is it?"

"Ah, you're a smart one," Durzo replied. "Figured it out faster than the last one."

Her mind had about enough of his brash demeanor. Wetting her mouth and lips with her tongue, she turned to the side and studied the peeling paint on the walls. While what he said was obvious, she could not comprehend that there was someone sent to that world before her. Why would they be? Was she sent here to bring them back?

"Last one?" she queried; her voice oscillating softly.

Would the earth open up and swallow her whole? Cyras would rather have been propelled to the Death-plane than another world entirely. Another world? It was possible that this was another plane of existence that the sages and magi hadn't discovered yet.

"That's not important right now," he dismissed the question.

Durzo was becoming a thorn in her side. Like Vaene, he had the ability to get under her skin rather easily. It would seem like Vaene opened a doorway to her emotions that had remained shut tightly throughout her entire life.

"Let's focus on this," Blint gestured to her arm, "then we'll talk. No secrets. Agreed?"


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

Durzo Blint, now fully dressed in mottled gray cloth, sat back in a weathered, old chair and sipped at the beer he had poured for himself. He gazed at the strange woman over the rim of his cup. She could feel the palpable thoughts behind his strict gaze.

She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes as he shrugged nonchalantly and brought the cup down.

"They're a little tight in the chest," he offered.

Cyras cocked her head to the side. Strands of her hair kissed the nape of her neck, like a tender lover. Durzo's hand wrapped around the cup as he brought it back up to his lips.

"You think?" she bit off sardonically. She brought her hands to her hips and gave him a look that said that she wouldn't be going out in public the way she was. There wasn't much to be done about it, at any rate. A set of Kylar's old clothes was all that they could find.

_Although he did not explain who Kylar is_, she thought, _at the very least, I don't have to stay in the nude._ This Kylar had sensible tastes in clothing. Holes in the dark colored frock were patched, but she couldn't do anything with it.

"You'll have to make due," Durzo stated, "at least until I'm able to get some clothing that's made more to your form."

_My, my, my_, her mind quipped,_ it would seem that he is fond of speaking the obvious. _ The clothing pretty much fit, except that she couldn't get the buttons fastened over her chest. It left a gaping maw in the fabric, and her breasts threatened to spill out. The hideous outfit brought a new definition of cleavage.

"You don't have to worry about being seen in it; I'd rather you not go out, for your safety and others," he continued. While his words sounded like a request, Cyras could not help but think of them as a command. She wondered briefly what would have happened if she would venture outside his quaint house. What exactly would he do?

Raising her hands to the soft material, she tried to stretch it across her cleavage. It gave a little, but she couldn't bring the sides close enough together to fasten the buttons. Giving up, she pulled a chair out, opposite him, and sat down.

"You'd probably set a new trend, anyway," Durzo added. He laughed. The guffaw echoed in the small space like they were in a small cave. Cyras knew that he was trying to lighten the situation with a jest. She despised such a gesture as it reminded her of her weakness. He shuddered. "Just what we need is to see Trudana Jadwin walking around in that."

Cyras picked up the mug across from her. Steam rose from the opening, curling into spirals aloft, and caressed her flesh. Her skin, damp from the humid air, gleamed in the candlelight.

_Who is this Jadwin?_ she wondered. The thought passed as quickly as it came.

Durzo dug into his pocket and retrieved a small, white morsel. As he peeled it with a thin dagger, the sulfuric scent overtook her.

_Garlic_, she thought as she lowered her lips to the brim of the vessel and drank. With the scent, the memories surged inside of her and blackened her thoughts like the anomaly in the Northern Wastes. Heat assaulted her body, searing the memories into her mind as a white hot brand.

The liquid was not as strong as she was used to. It tasted strange and refused to go down, like a thick syrup. However, it did cover up the bitter aftertaste from the earlier kiss. That was something that she did not want to repeat.

"So you intend on keeping me a prisoner?" she uttered as she caught the seriousness he had buried with a joke.

He lifted an eyebrow and placed the clove in his mouth.

A sudden urge to reach across the table and slap him overcame her. He was, perhaps, the most infuriating man in Midcyru, and it was her luck that she had fallen into his life.

"You'll find that I'm not much of a willing captive, Blint," she challenged. Picking up a match stick on the table, she turned it at a ninety-degree angle to the others before resting it on the surface again. Relief soared through her like a bird on the wing.

"I told you," Durzo reiterated. His voice grew unyielding like a well forged blade. "It's for your own safety. You're dangerous. Very dangerous."

She picked up another small stick. It was barely longer than her index finger. Tiny bits of wood splintered into her flesh, causing pain to ignite in her body. She would rather have the small amount of agony than to torture herself with the images of their brief closeness.

"I don't know if you are aware of just how dangerous you are. Maybe you are, but that doesn't change the fact that you _are_ dangerous."

_Dangerous? _she screeched inside the confines of her own mind. If they were on Arathea, he would have known she was well aware of how just how treacherous she was. Like her namesake, her feral nature lurked beneath her undisturbed veneer.

"I'm not a threat to anyone that doesn't threaten me," she countered, trying her best to win the argument against this frustratingly uncompromising man. She turned the piece of wood horizontally before placing it back on the table. Sliding the tiny stick over to the left, she placed its wick against the other one's.

"And how do you define a threat?" he asked her, immediately. It would seem that he had foreseen her rebuttal. "See, that's what I'm talking about. I don't know enough about you to feel safe enough having you in public. You don't belong here. Here, _you_ are the threat."

If they were in Arathea, they would not have been having this conversation. He would have been the one trespassing in another world. Durzo would be the one who was confused. As the gravity of the circumstance consumed him, he would be the one feeling faint.

Lifting the mug of beer to his lips, he stared at her cleavage over the lip.

Like a bull impeding her path, the demons spurned by his gaze could not be vanquished easily. In his brief look, she could see the shape of Niccolo transform before her. She doubted that she would ever be comfortable with a man gazing at her tits without the Shade's memory resurfacing.

Cyras' hands moved to the gaping fabric again, and she tried to pull the shirt closed violently. The fabric strained in warning. Scowling, she glowered at him.

She was not being fair, but Cyras did not care. The humiliation of him forcing her to stay within the house tainted any rational thoughts. After their fleeting and revealing encounter in his bath chamber, he had barely looked at her breasts. When he spoke to her, he stared into her eyes to convey the seriousness of their discussion.

"Help me try to button this," she ordered.

A smirk appeared on his face, pulling his dimple cheeks upwards into a smile. Humor lurked deeply in his light gaze.

_The bastard is enjoying this!_ she howled, silently.

Briefly, she envisioned herself strangling him for his flippant attitude. Bolting through her like lightning, surprise jolted within her. There were brief instances in her life where someone acted like this man. It usually was because they were suicidal and wished to die. He did it because he could.

"I'm tired of you staring at me like a piece of meat."

"It's fine the way it is," Durzo said. Another smirk graced his sharp features. "I prefer it that way, in fact."

_Damn that snide smile_, she cursed to herself. Her lover had a smile like that, and he brought it out when he wanted her to do something that she didn't wish to do. Vaene was manipulative in that way. Was Blint?

Cyras glared, envisioning ways that she could kill the man. It wasn't anything she did in ill will or with any intent whatsoever. She always thought about every possible outcome of a situation. In her line of work, one had to be ready for anything.

The grin spread his thin lips, creasing his scarred cheeks.

At this point, she was bordering closely to finding pleasure in the murderous thoughts. Guilt sliced through her like the honed edge of a blade. There were few times in her life that she experienced true guilt at her reactions. An assassin that hesitated was a dead assassin.

"Well, I can tell from the look in your eyes that you're in no mood for humor," he added, his expression going blank.

As he withdrew into himself again, Cyras wondered at the sense of loss and dismissed the pondering at the same time. She did not have time to consider anything that Durzo inspired within her. He wouldn't be in her life long enough to even matter to her.

Standing, he walked over to her. He towered over her, inciting a fear to emerge from deeply in her stomach. Since she experienced pain as far as she could remember, she startled easily. She despised her conditioned reaction to a man making a quick movement towards her.

She scooted backwards and shrank away from him. Cyras could never mistake him for Niccolo, but at that moment, her greatest fear was not the man before her. Her heart was like a drum in her chest. She was covered in terror's oily embrace.

"Relax," he urged her. It was as if he expected her to will her body right away. She could do it because she had ample control over her body. The command over herself was one of the only things that she held on to with Niccolo and when he forced her into whoring.

Breathing deeply, she tried to center herself. Tilting her head up, she stared into the intensity that she had only seen in one other man.

"Here, lay down on the pallet. I'll straddle you."

That was the most ridiculous thing that Cyras had ever heard. Her clients straddled her many other times until she learned to not let them. They would either force her to pleasure them with her mouth or inflict grievous pain upon her.

Arching her eyebrow, she could not believe what she was hearing.

"We'll try to get that buttoned," he offered. "I wouldn't hold out hope, though."

She did what he requested without comment, laying down woodenly on the small pallet. Despite her ability to mask what she was feeling, fear wrote itself on the contours of her pale countenance. Straw bunched under her back. The thin blanket did nothing to keep the straw at bay. It bit through the cloth of the tunic like a thousand ants gnawing into her flesh.

Durzo sat over her stomach. The inside of his thighs touched her sides. Powerful muscles flexed, reminding her briefly of her arrival. Leaning forward, he grasped the tunic by the lapels. His hands brushed against the flesh of her cleavage. She was shocked at how rough he felt. Neither of them made mention of it, much to her relief.

A visage of Vaene formed in her mind's eye, and she found herself feeling lost within his gaze. When her lover touched her, she felt the electricity of his touch and the calluses of a seasoned warrior. She longed for a reprieve from her remorse and her body's response to this stranger.

Inhaling deeply, she wondered at the significance of her body's reaction to Blint. He was a potent man, much like the other who would always hold her heart. Perhaps, that was what made her body respond to him in such a way. It was seeking a substitute, something to assuage the agony of having the only one she loved walk away from her.

A rush of heat followed in the wake of his touch. Her confusion grew, and she felt like she was adrift in a roaring river, and there was no safety to be found, no branches to grab. Cyras was not in the mood to have to explain the reddening of her cheeks. She didn't even want to think about it.

The fabric strained as he pulled the lapels together.

As he forced the fabric together, a dull ache billowed in her shoulder. Agony spiraled within her, mixing with the fear and the desire blossoming there. She didn't know what to do. Cyras felt like a fly caught in a spider's web. No amount of struggling would allow her release.

There was a tearing sound, and she could feel cool air on the flesh under her arms. Exposure there didn't matter to her; no one could see her underarms.

"There," Durzo grunted. He'd gotten the button in the middle of the gap fastened.

The shirt drew tight, rippling under the pressure holding it fastened. Contorting around her form, it squeezed her like a constricting python. Her breaths puffed out as her breasts pushed into twin, flat mounds against her ribcage. They bulged grotesquely both above and below the button.

As Cyras breathed in deeply, the thread holding the button gave. The tunic snapped back open. Like a rock from a sling, the button was propelled through the air, directly into Durzo's forehead.

There was no indication from Blint that the button had hit him. He sat stoically on top of her. His thighs pinned her down, crushing her sides under the chiseled musculature. Durzo didn't even flinch. The only evidence left behind was a small, reddening welt in the center of his forehead.

Humor erupted inside of her, arcing like lightning through her body. She knew that she should not have delighted in the face of such a serious situation. He did not seek to cause her distress. Regret intermingled with the humorous situation.

"I told you it wasn't going to work," he said with a shrug.

Cyras rolled her eyes, holding the tunic closed with her hands. Her breasts weren't in any real danger of falling out in the position that she was in, but she was not about to take any chances with this man who she had just met. Beneath his raptor stare, she felt exposed like she did with Vaene. Every one of her scars, both imaginary and physical, felt painfully visible under the scrutinizing gaze of the man straddling her.

Terror welled up within her and threatened to burst forth like a volcano erupting. The emotion flooded her senses. Cyras balked before the feelings, wiggling beneath him. She didn't need anyone. Especially someone like him.

_By the sword-arm of Vittore_, she thought, _thankfully he doesn't remark on my movement_. He didn't question her squirming. Durzo took it as the obvious signal to get off of her.

"There has to be something else I can wear here," she insisted as he helped her up. It was an unusual gesture. No one had ever extended a helping hand to her before, and she had always thought that she would refuse it if it was offered.

She was never weak enough to depend on any man. The only thing that they brought was pain and misery. Like Vaene Arturis, the vener (or whoever made man in Midcyru) cut Durzo from a different cloth than most men. Even though he had the prowess of a killer, and she could recognize a fellow assassin by his demeanor, there were certain aspects of him that spoke to her in a primitive way, a man speaking to a woman.

However, she took his hand and accepted his help in standing. Agony cut her deeply, penetrating her to the bone. Why did he silently challenge all of her beliefs, without even being aware of them? What made men like him and Vaene stand out among the midden heap that was their fellows?

"There's nothing else," Durzo responded.

Reaching up with her hand, she brushed her fingers through her hair. Strings of light colored hair cascaded down her back, reflecting the gold as if it were a river of sovereigns. Pieces fell forward and curved around her cheeks.

"I have some clothing here, but you're not going to ruin it like you've ruined that shirt."

Cyras didn't want to wear his clothing. They would smell like him, and she would feel strange. She wondered if she would ever feel normal again. Would the door that Vaene opened closed by itself. Was it too late for that now? She felt disgusted with herself.

"Then you're just going to have to take me shopping," Cyras demanded in a tone that prohibited contesting. Crossing her arms over her breasts, feeling the flesh pool in her hand, she sighed. Her lips pressed downward into a grim line.

Ivory pain contorted in her shoulder, digging sharp talons into the muscles beneath her skin. Lifting her other hand, she tried to rub the stiffness from the joint.

Durzo let out a rough sigh of frustration.

"Look," she countered the obvious defiance. "I don't know this Kylar, and I am not going to wait around for him to find out that I destroyed his tunic. I want a frock that actually fits."

"Fine."

Cyras smiled triumphantly, not making even the smallest effort to mask her gloating. She considered it no small victory getting her way with a man, any man. Because she was seldom ever able to gain even a little ground with Niccolo, she made up for it by bending other men to her whims. It was a challenge with Vaene, and it seemed like this man was going to be no different.

She preferred it that way. Many men in her life fell into three categories. One sought to possess her much like Niccolo did. Those kinds bought her pleasures and paid extra to maim her flesh. Blood and pain would follow a night with them. Cyras always made it worse on those _patrons_, however.

Another type had heard of her legend on the streets of Olessa. While among the local Arathean rabble, she inspired a medley of admiration and fear. It was the price of being the best, something that many couldn't understand. There would always be a lesser assassin in the Order wishing to prove their mettle against the elite.

Finally, knowing that she was the best gave her a sort of arrogance that many were hard-pressed to find. Her confidence pierced them as swiftly as a dagger to the gut. Those men didn't understand what to do with an intelligent, successful woman.

As she smiled once more, her eyes flashed with the irony of her thoughts. Cyras prided herself with the ability to read someone. It came with the territory of her job, and she took comfort in those thoughts. There was another category of men that the woman had never seen in her life. In this unpredictable rung on her classification ladder, she would have to place both Durzo and Vaene.

"If you're going to gloat," Durzo uttered, "then I might just change my mind."

The smile quickly left her lips, though it lingered on in her eyes. Cyras wasn't going to let him take away her moment of celebration, especially after everything she had been through. She was likely to never see Arathea, or more importantly, Vaene again.

Knowing that the last time she had seen the love of her life he had rejected her, hurt her more than she realized that anything could. Like a smoky, creeping cloud, sullenness drifted through the planes of her mind. Her mouth watered as a lump rose up from her stomach and lodged itself in the center of her throat. Heat assaulted her flesh like she was standing in the middle of a crackling forge.

Cyras pushed away the thoughts of the fair haired Glorendine, swallowing hard, and tried to resist the memories that threatened to overwhelm her. What small moments of joy she could find in her current situation, she was going to cling to and bask within.

"Well?" she questioned pointedly. "Are we going to go?"

"Wait, you wanted to go now? It's the middle of the night." Durzo made no effort to mask his annoyance. It was understandable. He was likely planning on bathing and going to bed for the night. His mundane plans were extraordinarily interrupted, and he was left to deal with the current situation.

Still, she knew what would happen if she did not keep busy. The grief of losing Vaene would darken the contours of her thoughts, making her realize just how much she lost. There was likely no way to get back to Arathea. In that truth, there would be no way to make it back to Vaene and protect him. He would die without her!

_By all that Vittore holds true_, her mind cried out, _he may already be murdered_.

"I've made a concession by allowing you to go with me, but you're just going to have to wait until morning."

Drawing her lips into a thin line, Cyras tightened them. She didn't argue with him. The finality of his tone told her that his graciousness was wearing thin, and she didn't dare push him any further. He was a stranger to her, after all, and she didn't know how he would react if she were to anger him. Her triumph could quickly crumble to a crushing defeat if she attempted to press her luck any further.

His protests made more sense than she wanted to admit. If Cenaria was anything like Olessa, then the shops would be closed. It would be useless to argue her case, at that point.

"Fine," she murmured, aping his earlier remark in tone and inflection.

"Besides," Durzo added, "I want to have a long conversation with you before I go anywhere with you. Call it 'assessing a threat.'"

_He has a point, _she thought. He was smart to realize that she was a threat, and he was even smarter to want to try to gauge that threat. Cyras was going through the same thoughts and the same assessment. Only a fool would simply accept the situation at face value. She was no fool; obviously, he wasn't either.

She had options, however. Cyras could be honest, and he would know just how much of a threat she was. Under the discipline of Niccolo for almost three decades, she possessed skills that normal women could not obtain. Looking at an herb, she could guess the medicinal and virulent properties in the plant. Being able to recall a blade technique up on a whim, swords and daggers were not the only weapons in her arsenal. She knew twenty-five methods of killing someone with her bare hands.

On the other hand, she could hold back and keep him blind of her true strength. How could she know what type of threat this man was? He moved like a killer, graceful in his movements. His intense gaze reminded her of Vaene's, an accomplished general who had seen battles in the many wars out in the borderlands between the Olessan Empire and Glorendt.

Still, there was something in his eyes that betrayed all of her self preserving instincts. She denied those emotions that urged her to trust him. Cyras made that mistake once before with her Olessan King, and she payed for it with his life.

Stifling the grief threatening to consume her thoughts and repressing the memories of Vaene's flesh against her own, Cyras knew she had to return to Arathea and save the only one who should have been able to stir her emotions like a magi stirring her cauldron of limitless future paths.

Blinking, she tried to drive the thoughts of Vaene away. She concentrated on Durzo, but she could not remove the memories, even with a well placed blow from a blade.

Though she had every reason to choose to keep the truth from him, she opted for honesty, though she wouldn't divulge information that he didn't directly ask for. She knew what type of assassin told everything about themselves. It was a novice. Cyras was well practiced in the art of trickle truths.

"I'm ready whenever you are, Blint," she muttered as she prepared herself for a plethora of different possible introductory questions. She sat back down at the table and crossed her legs one over the other. Tilting her head to the side, her gaze locked with his clear eyes.

"Where are you from?" Durzo asked again. Because he liked to get to the heart of the question, Cyras felt his intent was much deeper than the simple question. He went to the cupboard, pulled out a earthenware cup, and lifted a large jug from the floor.

"Arathea."

"Where in Arathea?" he probed. As he tilted the jug, a dusky liquid tumbled from the spout into the waiting vessel.

"Olessa," she replied. She picked up one of the matchsticks in her hand, holding the slender piece of wood between her thumb and middle finger. Turning it upright, she slid it back to touch the end of the other one on the table. "I was in the city when I was transported here."

Durzo walked over to her and placed the mug before her on the table. The dark alcohol sloshed around the inside of the cup.

She picked up the cup, lowered her face to the vessel, and sniffed at the liquid within. Cyras didn't mean any disrespect. All it was was an instinctual reaction. People in her order would try to poison her to advance their own goals. When Niccolo expelled her from the Order, they would try to bring him her head to please him.

As was the case with Vaene, Blint was different. He had no reason to kill her. Durzo was still a threat, however. He was an unknown entity in her life. Her instincts screamed for her to flee from him and find a way back home. She wanted to escape to Glorendt and be rid of the emotions that-

"Have you ever heard of the Hagsblight?"

Cyras' thoughts came to a screeching halt. Startled, she tore her gaze away from his and stared at the steps that she made out of the matchsticks. Those tiny, perfect angles brought her comfort in an uneasy moment.

"Olessa is built on top of the Hagsblight. There's some legends about harpies having had a kingdom in the Hagsblight, thus the name, but that's all it is: a legend," she explained. Her voice took on an eerie tone like she was speaking from deep within herself.

"I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss things you can't understand as a legend," he lectured. Blint walked to the chair opposite herself and lowered himself onto the seat. "There may be more to those legends than you think."

_There may be more to those legends than you think, _her thoughts mocked. She shifted awkwardly as she lifted her gaze again.

She wondered what he meant by what he said. Legends were a way of warning a boy not to go chasing imaginary ghosts of the past. They brought comfort to little girls who had romantic ideals.

How could he know about the history of her world? Her curiosity peaked, and she hated that he could inspire that wonder inside of her.

_Damn Vaene_, she growled. The words echoed inside her mind. Knowing that her previous lover had opened a door and this man had taken advantage of that, unknowingly, left her questioning her own sanity. Things were much simpler before she took that blasted contract.

"How do you know that? Where would you have heard about the Hagsblight?"

"You remember, I told you about the one that came from your world before?"

Cyras nodded. Her hair brushed the curves of her cheeks. Anxiety reared within her. It froze her, reminding her of just where she was. She knew that it would be unlikely that she would find a way home.

"He came here between five and six hundred years ago. He was from some kingdom inside the Hagsblight. I don't remember the name. Your legendary harpies are more than a myth."

_He's mad!_ her mind rebuked the idea. That had to be the only explanation for his words. Bringing the cup of beer to her lips, she took a long drink. The bitterness drove the thoughts away. She coughed roughly as one of the foamy suds burst, splashing into her nose.

His gaze pierced her. For a brief moment, she thought that he could read everything that she was thinking. He would know that she thought the explanation inconceivable.

"What?" she whispered, quietly. The left side of her head began to throb with the thoughts assaulting her. Breathing deeply, she took another long drink. Laughter bubbled up from inside her. Surely, he was jesting.

Suddenly, she wondered if everything was untrue. Perhaps, they were really in the Olessan Empire. He was an enemy of the Black Tigress. With her profession, she had accumulated many of those. This man could have been a brother or father of one of her marks.

"He have all kinds of stories to tell you?" she remarked as she looked at him. Yes, it was quite probable that he was someone who she had once wronged. The smirk stretched across her lips, but the smile did not reach her eyes. She felt foolish.

"You could say that. It wasn't so much what he said, though. It's what he was. He was a harpy, you see."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

"You're fucking insane," Cyras Covelli growled.

Durzo had been expecting Cyras' response, but there really wasn't any way for him to prove his words immediately. As easy as it would have been, it was not like he could force her to accept the truth.

Covelli would find, come morning, that she was in a city that she had never visited, at the very least. She might still cling to the notion that she was in Arathea, foolishly, but he believed that she wasn't the type of person given to delusion. Striking him as one who could easily wrap her mind around concepts that were alien to her, she wouldn't be all that difficult to convince.

"That explains it," she said as if coming to a sudden realization. She snapped her fingers as she said the words. The sharp sound reverberated in the small space between them. "You're insane."

People would often desperately cling to a notion when their mind could not grasp a concept like that which he presented to her. He had made that particular observation much earlier in his long life. It was easier to deal with the thoughts of Talent and magic than it was to consider that you were in another world entirely.

"You've used some sort of magick, probably elemental judging from the blue smoke, to transport me to an unfamiliar location. Are you some lecherous mage looking for a woman to bang against her will? Is that why I was transported naked?"

"That's a little bit of an elaborate plan for rape," Blint countered.

"I would have you know that I won't be easy prey," she continued, ignoring him. She brought the cup of beer up to her mouth again and drank greedily. The lump in her throat bobbed vigorously as she swallowed. A faint scar, barely visible to the eye, stretched along the center of her neck, distorting in rhythm with her swallowing.

"I don't need to take something forcefully that I could get willingly."

"Not from me," Cyras sneered.

If he was a lesser man, the look in her eyes would have chilled him to the bone. She was counting on that reaction. There was a slight problem. Durzo Blint was far beyond a lesser man.

He shrugged and frowned apathetically. Images of her flesh erupted in his mind as he was reminded of how she had felt astride him.

Running her finger across the top of her lip, she collected the foamy bubbles from the alcohol. She picked up one of the linen rags laying on the table and wiped off her hand.

"You might not believe the matter with the harpies," he droned, unfazed, "and, to tell you the truth, I don't give a shit."

Her brow narrowed at his words. She shook her head from the left to the right. A scowl knitted itself into her pale complexion. Picking up a matchstick, she twirled the skinny wood between her fingers.

"I was only trying to determine if you were from the same region as this man who claimed to be one, and you are. There's a connection in that; it's not coincidental."

"Now, it's my turn," she interrupted. Her viridescent gaze settled on his, scouring his countenance for whatever it was that she was looking for. Pulling her mouth into a thin line, she paused.

He readied himself for whatever barrage of curiosity that would leave her mouth.

The sun started to peak outside, streaming light through the windows. They had been talking for quite some time now. Durzo could feel the tiredness wax within his muscles, pulling at the edges of his eyelids.

Under the weight of her gaze, he felt her judgment. The first question formed in her mind, and it would take some time for her to form it into words. He would only tell her what she needed to hear. Durzo still wasn't sure whether she represented a threat to him or not.

"Are you an assassin? From Glyndon?"

Ignoring her question and focusing on the subject, he glared at her, showing the depth of the insult that she had just slung upon him in his eyes.

"No. Assassin's fail. I don't."

Cyras matched his glare in both meaning and intensity. She pursed her lips, bringing them into a tight O. The scorn swirled in the depths of her eyes.

"I am a wetboy."

"Ooooh,' Cyras uttered as she sat back in the chair. Her gaze flashed triumphantly, blazing brilliantly. A smile stretched across her face.

He felt uneasy at that smile. For a moment, he was reminded of an apex predator stalking around the edges, looking for the advantageous path to the most efficient kill.

"That's even more evidence to support the fact that we are somewhere in Glorendt."

"What?" Durzo blurted, clearly not following the same logic that she was. He felt the world spin at her argument. "How does me being a wetboy support the fact that we're in Glorendt? Enlighten me to your supreme logic on that?"

"Well, you've got blond hair, so that's one thing," Cyras stated, matter-of-factly. "The blue eyes. You're tall. You know the legend about Olessa and the Harpy Kingdom. That's a Glorendine myth."

Blint lifted an eyebrow. He couldn't see how she could connect those facts to him being from Glorendt.

"And you're a wetboy."

"There's wetboys in Glorendt?"

"Yes, of course," she replied. Cyras continued to pick up matches and stack them against each other. She smirked as she lined each stick up. "And if you are one, you should just loan me some of your clothing. They should fit better than these old things."

"They aren't going to fit any better."

"Well, of course the cut wouldn't be exact, but it has to be better than this," she continued. Her eyebrow lifted, jutting aloft.

Confusion struck him swiftly, growing inside of him.

"It won't."

"At least, let me try it on. I want to wear something a little more feminine," she protested. Her tone cut into him, cultivating the befuddlement like wheat.

"Why do you think that my clothing would be more feminine?" Durzo narrowed his eyes, genuinely confused. He couldn't understand what would make her draw that conclusion.

"You're a wetboy," Cyras said with no inflection. "You know, a Glorendine lady-boy? Are you embarrassed about it? I won't laugh, I promise."

"I'm a Cenarian wetboy," Durzo corrected, barely able to contain his anger.

She raised her eyebrow as she stared at him. A smirk enveloped her face, curling the edges of her lips upward. The light of the smile lit her eyes, making the golden flakes within them gleam at him.

_In the right light_, he thought, _she's damned attractive. _

Of course, she was increasingly frustrating. While Durzo met one other person that confounded him, this woman was different. He couldn't put his finger on why she seemed to have the ability to anger him or why he could do the same to her. Although they had just met, she seemed familiar. There was something about her that he could recognize instantly.

_It doesn't have anything to do with damned harpies, either,_ his mind protested, reminding him of his current predicament.

He was willing to give her a little bit of leeway, considering that she was plucked from another world, with different customs and traditions, and thrust into Midcyru. Cyras would have to throw out all of her knowledge of Arathea. It was useless in Midcyru. Like a newly born babe, she would have to survive on her instincts until she learn everything anew.

"So, you're a Cenarian lady-boy," Cyras stated the question.

"No!" he growled in return. His tone resonated around the cramped confines of the room.

As if sensing his frustration, the hogs in the next room snorted. The rank smell of rancid feces drifted towards them, and she scowled. Blint had spent so much time in that particular safe house that he couldn't smell the animals anymore. They were just a tool. When they outlived their purpose, he would have his apprentice dismember them and bury their bodies.

_If only all problems could be solved that way_, he considered. He had wanted a simple bath and to go to sleep. Durzo had to deal with a person who could not understand where she was or what anyone would say to her. She had become an unforeseen problem for him. Blint hated unforeseen dilemmas.

"You don't need to protest so much, Blint," she countered. Leaning forward, she placed her elbow on the table, clenched her hand into a fist, and rested her chin on the knuckles. Strands of her hair dangled downward and brushed the surface of the table. "You don't need to be embarrassed, either."

He couldn't understand where she had gotten the idea that he preferred men. Durzo never had those desires, and he always thought he exuded masculinity. The man could whore for hours on end. No, there were days that he could lose himself in the sensual flesh of women.

Of course, there was Cyras, herself. His gaze traced the curve of her cheeks and the gentle sweep of her neck. The memory of her naked flesh on his own heated his blood.

"One of my best friends is a Glorendine ladyboy," she continued. She ran her right hand through her hair, pushing it off of her forehead. It was then that he noticed the scars on her wrists. Dark, large creases, circling the entirety of her wrist, marred her creamy complexion. As he continued to gaze at it and her, he noticed that the puckered skin resembled the braid of a rope. He would guess that many times in her life she was a captive.

"I'm a wetboy. There's no such thing as ladyboys here. Well, maybe there is, but we don't call them that here."

"What do you call them?" she questioned, tilting her head to look at him. The matches before her were staggered like stairs. Each stick made a perfect ninety-degree angle with two others.

"Benders."

She puckered her lips. The corner of her mouth glided to the left, pulling her taunt mouth slightly. Her nose scrunched high; the flesh crinkling with the movement.

"What does it matter?" he asked. "You asked if I was an assassin. I'm _better_ than an assassin."

"You speak, but I only see shit pouring from your mouth," she glared at him as if she was contemplating his death. She very likely was. If Durzo was not who he was, the daggers in her eyes would have rent his mind, piercing deeply into him.

The realization of what she was quickly dawned on him. There was only one reason why she would have spoken with such venom.

"Did I strike a nerve?" he taunted.

She narrowed her brow and pulled her lips together as tightly as she could. Through that action, he knew what she was. He understood why she moved with speed and grace. The look in her eyes was familiar because he understood the same love that she felt. It was not one of killing, but one of battle.

"You're an assassin." It was not a question, but rather a statement.

"No!" Cyras jerked her head off of her knuckles, and a halo of blond hair exploded around her body. She threw her hands up, but it was too late. She had slipped on something that she hadn't been planning on divulging. In that one instant, Blint understood to not take her words at face value.

Durzo smiled triumphantly.

She frowned. Her forehead glistened with sweat. Lowering her hand, she rubbed her head in frustration.

"Remember what I said before the questions started?" the wetboy murmured. He leaned forward and raked his gaze down her body. While before there was an intimate component to his gaze, this was purely to intimidate her.

Durzo didn't know her, and he didn't know what she was capable of. He was not going to chance that she was harmless. She had already fabricated the truth once.

"I told you not to lie to me," he lectured her as if she was an apprentice. "You agreed. I'm willing to give you one chance to retract that statement. Don't take it lightly."

"I'm _not_ an assassin," Cyras insisted. "At least, not by your definition. In Olessa and Glorendt, I am called an assassin; however, I don't fail. Period. My targets are called _marks_ for a reason. Vittoré has marked them for death, and there is no escape."

Determination glittered in her eyes, sparkling like the sea on a warm summer's eve. She spoke with pride as she told him about her marks. He could recognize the professional assurance glistening in her gaze.

"Sounds like a wetboy's deader," he responded offhandedly.

"I'm not a weboy!" she blurted; her voice hard as a blade. Her gaze narrowed in her ire. If they were daggers, he would have been impaled on the spot. Clenching her teeth together, her upper lip curled. "You know for a fact that I don't have a cock swinging around between my legs!"

"Cyras, wetboy has a different meaning here. It wasn't an insult. Wetboys are the top of the food chain, supreme killers. We use the Talent to aid us, something that assassins don't possess."

"I'm talented at what I do," she protested. Breathing in deeply, she puffed out her chest. Pride lurked deeply within her. From the short amount of time he knew her, he understood that she liked to stoke the flames of her ego.

"Not that kind of talent," Durzo explained. The entire conversation was beginning to drag on for him. He leaned back in the chair. "Magical Talent."

"I have magick." She slapped her palms to her mouth, apparently unhappy about yet another slip. "Shit!"

"That's odd," Durzo said, leaning forward. He sat silently for a long moment, staring deeply into Cyras' eyes, studying her intently.

She returned his gaze with a steadfastness he'd never witnessed in a woman. Egotism splashed across her face, boring deeply into her vibrant gaze.

"Very odd." He leaned back again, rubbing his jaw with his left hand. The wisps of beard flowed over his hand and tickled the rough flesh.

"What is?" Cyras asked, not betraying anything with her tone. He didn't buy her suddenly innocent demeanor for a second. She looked up at him through lowered eyelashes.

_No,_ he thought. _Not for a second. _She was merely acting the part of a demure woman. He remembered the look on her face, the posturing of her _marks_, and the feline-like agility. Cyras Covelli was a killer. Plain and simple. There was nothing else so obvious about her. It was a nice act, however.

"You say you have magic," he responded, narrowing his eyes. The seconds ticked by as he sized her up. It was a strange silence, knowing that she was most likely doing the same thing. "I don't sense a drop of Talent in you. Come to think of it, I didn't sense anything with the other, either."

"Perhaps, you simply can't," Cyras suggested.

His brow knitted, and his jaw tensed. He didn't like what she was proposing. Durzo had always thought he could sense someone's Talent. Everything about this woman was an enigma to him. He found himself wanting to know more about her and Arathea.

Maybe, that was why he hadn't outright killed her, in the first place. She had fallen into a world that she didn't understand and represented a threat that was far too large for her to comprehend. It would have been a mercy killing.

"I sense nothing from you, either, but I witnessed your magick, your _Talent_," she explained. Her gaze glided down his body, judging him for what he was. In her assessment, he felt exposed. During her short life, she must have seen much to make him feel that way.

_I'm going soft,_ Durzo considered. This thought was not unusual in itself. Blint had always considered himself to be slipping. He would always drive himself past the levels that he was physically capable of. Being the best wetboy in Cenaria had put a target on him. Others would always try to best him or to use him to achieve their own place in the Sa'kagé. He had to prepare for the inevitable.

"They are two different senses, in a way. A blind man can't tell that another man can see. He doesn't even know what sight is." Her gaze trailed back to his face, and she stared intently. Clasping her hands together after making her point, she leaned back in the chair.

_Yes,_ Durzo mused, _I'm definitely slipping_.

She smiled at him. The grin stretched across her face, reaching towards her eyes. Her gaze glittered, shining with excitement.

"A very eloquent way of calling me a blind man," Blint grumbled.

Durzo took the moment of silence that followed to wonder at himself.

_Yes_, Blint thought again. He was softening. Why had he not simply just outright killed this woman when she appeared miraculously, in his safe house of all places? That was irony, in itself. And of all times for her to appear, it was when he was there, and in a compromised position.

She tipped forward in the chair again, matching his gaze with her own.

He had many safe houses throughout Cenaria. The fact that she appeared at this one, when he occupied it, couldn't be mere coincidence. There had to be more to it than what was visible to the common eye. Durzo knew that. Where coincidence appeared, there was magic behind it.

"I didn't mean to offend you, Blint," Cyras spoke. Her mouth set in a thin line as the words came out. She purred his name like she was a kitten getting the loving attention of her mama cat. The words tumbled passed her tongue and through her lips.

_A mama cat?_ He sneered. Durzo didn't feel very generous. He thought that maybe she was a wytch. However, his mind reminded him of the other. Something brought him to her, and he didn't know exactly what. And why couldn't he sense her power?

The genuineness to her voice cut through the dark clouds passing through his mind. Of course, she didn't mean to offend him, and it was the truth, at any rate. He was literally blind to her power, and that

unknown variable made her more dangerous than any being he had ever encountered. She could have limitless Talent, or she could have none.

"I don't want you to leave the safe house without me," he concluded, satisfied with the course of the questioning.

She opened her mouth in protest. When he glared at her, she promptly closed it.

"When we go to Master Piccun's tomorrow, I want you to remain in my sights at all times. If you have any other questions, they can wait until morning. I need a fucking bath." He stood and cast a glance at her before turning around.

Exhaustion muddled his movements. He was unaware of just how tired he actually was. Having a stranger appear in mid air and drop on him would do that to a person, he assumed.

Blint knew that if he felt as tired as he did, then she must have felt worse. He couldn't imagine the strain coming to Midcyru from Arathea placed on her body. She would either sleep long in the morning or expire in the night.

"Durzo?" she called as he made his way back towards the bath, her voice soft and wavering in uncertainty. The unusual events crashed down upon her as she did not have their interrogations to distract her. More than likely, she would be asleep by the time he returned.

He stopped, turned his head slightly.

"What is Master Piccun?" she asked.

"He's the best tailor in Cenaria. He's going to try to bang you. It's expected of his female clientele. Don't disappoint. I do business with him. I expect you not to cause my business to become strained." He walked into the other room without waiting for a response, allowing her to digest the gravity of what was said.

"I am not going to fuck anyone. I'm an assassin, not a whore. My body is not for sale. I already played that role with my decrepit master. I don't need another lecherous pander. I decide who and when! If this Piccun tries anything with me, then I will cut off his cock, shove it up his ass, and tell him to politely thank you for allowing him to backend himself."

He stopped for a moment.

"After all, Durzo Blint," she purred. "It's just business."

"We'll talk about it later, kid," Durzo growled, not hiding his annoyance. He didn't so much as turn around when he spoke. The only thing on his mind was getting the bath he had been denied earlier. He would try to sleep after. There was no guarantee he would be able to with her in the house.

"We'll talk about it now, Blint," she stated neutrally. Cyras followed him into the other room, step by step. She reminded him of a dog following her master. He didn't want to be her master; Durzo didn't want to be anything to her.

With his back to her, he scowled. The woman was persistent in what she wanted. He didn't know if it was because of what happened to her or if it was an annoying quirk to her personality. With his luck, it was probably a little of both.

"I'm not a whore, not anymore. I won't be a whore for you. I won't be a whore for this tailor. I won't be a whore for my master. Those days are gone. I would rather die."

"If you feel so strongly about it," Durzo conceded, just wanting to be done with the conversation. He pinched his nose in annoyance, "then I will go in with you while he takes your measurements. Then, I will be sure that both of you are safe. Alright?"

"No," she denied. Cyras crossed her arms over her breasts. The round flesh bulged beneath her touch, spilling above and below her arms. Her eyes flashed brightly in her anger. "I don't want you in there with me."

One of his eyebrows arched at the sudden mixture of ire and melancholy of her refusal. There was more to Cyras than what she let on. He knew he would not sleep that night. He couldn't trust her.

"You'll be staring at my scars."

"Like I give a shit about your scars." His annoyance was swiftly mounting. "Look, I'm going with you whether you like it or not, and it's more for Piccun's safety than for yours. That's nonnegotiable. Either that, or you can just wear what you have on now. Or nothing. Doesn't matter to me either way. By the Night Angels, you are trying my patience!"

Cyras slumped, defeated, but she wasn't going to let him have a victory without some compensation. She stood silently in the bath chamber, refusing to leave. Like twin embers of fury, her green eyes blazed at him.

"Do you mind?" Blint groaned. "I'd like to get a bath sometime tonight."

"No, I don't mind. You do what you have to do. I'm going to stay here, to keep an eye on you. Don't think for a second that I trust you, _wetboy_. Besides, there's more I wish to discuss, and I refuse to be put off."

Durzo walked over to her, reached out, and gripped her arm. Her puckered flesh slid beneath his fingertips as he clutched her forearm.

She recoiled from his touch as if he scalded her.

Keeping an unemotional facade on his face, he pushed her through the doorway. Closing the door as fast as he could, he could hear her undignified sigh on the other side of it. Reaching out, he clasped his left hand around the lock.

In the early morning light, the sound of the door locking, unlocking, and locking reverberated through the room.

"If you think this means that you are free from my questions," her muffled voice came from behind the door, "you are more mad than I have previously thought."

_Insufferable woman_, Durzo Blint sighed as he turned back towards the now cold bath. _Tomorrow would be a joy with her._


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

_She moved over him slowly. The dim light from the candle crept up the down-stuffed mattress, dancing along her flesh. Her knees sank into the many layers of dark bed coverings. Silken cloth touched her skin, confounding her._

_The last thing she remembered was her showdown with the strange man in the land that he had called Midcyru. _

_Something pulled her attention to the gaze of her lover. His warm gray eyes stared up at her with an expression that she had remembered from such a long time ago. The look haunted her dreams, teasing her memory, igniting the flames of recollection._

_Lifting her head, she gazed unfocused around the room and tried to clear the bewildering fog that enveloped her mind._

_Light climbed the surface of the stone wall that replaced the plain stucco of the wetboy's safe-house. Instead of blank walls, woven unicorns, dragons, and griffons danced upon the woven fabric of tapestries. _

Yes_, she thought, _it was increasingly strange_. The last thing she recalled was lying down upon Durzo's pallet and covering up with the small, diaphanous blanket. Now, she was making love to Vaene._

Perhaps_, she thought, _it was a dream_. A man like Durzo Blint could not exist. There could be no one that was as frustrating as he was. He was her sleeping mind's answer to an overwhelming mixture of exhaustion and alcohol. _

_A part of her knew that what she had experienced was real. The sulfuric scent of garlic was too potent and the grip of his hands was too biting for it not to be._

_It didn't make sense to her. Since her encounter with Durzo the night before, nothing in her life did. However, her encounter with Vaene was far too pleasurable, too wanted, for her to care enough to thoroughly question it. She simply gazed down into his gray eyes and smiled at the warmth reflected in them._

_Love radiated forth from within her, eclipsing any confusion that she held onto. The emotion exploded within her and shattered any shadows touching the surface of her soul. It was an unusual experience for the assassin, exposing her entirety to another._

_As she tried to pull away from him, she found she couldn't. Something foreign held her in place as if magickal bonds clasped around her ankles and bolted her to the bed. Instead of panicking, the intense desire of pleasuring the man that she loved overcame her. Like a drunken fool, a mist overcame her mind and blinded her actions._

"_I love you," she panted, her voice more than a whisper. They were separated far too long, and she had thought he would never forgive her for her deceptions. She choked back a sob, so happy was she to be back in the arms of the man Amés had created for her (and only her). _

_When she was dreaming of that strange man, she had thought that she would never be back in the embrace of Vaene. She had torn his life apart twice. Vaene meant many things to her. He was her escape from the tyrannical relationship with her master._

"_I love you, Vaene."_

"_I love you, Luciana."_

_Her eyes snapped to the mirror set into the wall on her left, and her mouth dropped open in shock._

_The sharp, sweeping curves of her cheeks were the same. Her full lips tilted upward in a familiar grin. Firm, perky breasts were larger than her own. Blonde hair, darker than her own, swept out onto her flesh in a wave, caressing her bare shoulders._

_Yes, she realized with horror, the features were familiar. The face that looked back at her wasn't her own; it was her sister, Violetta's._

_An unusual anger swept within her, filling her with its strange intensity. She was not wrathful of the situation, exactly. It was a frustration that ate at the corners of her mind before eclipsing the desire inside of her._

_In a sudden, unexplainable rush of motion, she was thrown backwards. Her body flailed through the air; her limbs distorting and growing in both length and size. The accumulating pain crested, and she reached her full height._

_However, the figure astride Vaene still existed. Violetta leaned, and her lithe body flexed beautifully in the candlelight. As always, her sister was beauty personified. There were no scars dotting her body's landscape. Cyras had made sure of that._

_A hand clamped onto the back of her neck, pinching the flesh. Lifting her hand and trying to pry the grip from her own, the owner would not relent. Her stomach roiled with the threat of violence. She would vomit._

_Coming to terms that this Durzo Blint fellow was a dream, a fabrication of a desperate mind, she knew she was awake and being forced to watch the only man that she really loved be murdered._

_Another powerful hand lost itself in the thick tangles of Cyras' hair, forcing her head aloft and making her stare at the couple on the bed. Tears glimmered on her eyelashes, but the Tigress never cried._

_As Vaene writhed in pleasure, she felt the bile rise in her throat. She tried to look anywhere else. The fertility tapestries beside the large, four-post bed glared at her. The lovers moved in rhythm with Vaene and Violetta._

"_Oh, you'll want to see this, Tigress," Niccolo hissed into her ear. His breath warmed her earlobe but, strangely, iced her insides. The smell of alcohol overtook her, causing her heart to race in her chest. "You deserve to see the fruits of your labor. Our labor."_

_Sickness washed over her, breaking upon her like a wave onto the shoreline. His statement was an offer to come back, to accept him as her master again. If she accepted him, he would forgive her fatal betrayals._

_Part of her wanted to concede to him. She wouldn't have to fear death around every turn, in every shadow. Cyras knew that he would beat her. His anger always ruined any moment as he grappled with her for control. He wouldn't kill her, though. Besides, she was too late to save Vaene._

Much too late_. Violetta reached to the back of her hair and pulled out a small dagger that was pushed into the thick, bright locks. She held it over her head, and it glinted, catching the moonlight. A thick, gelatinous substance covered the blade like wax. Globs of the poison stuck in the strands of her hair. _

_Aessi, she thought. The oil from the herb would render a lesser man still. It was likely meant to debilitate Vaene so that Niccolo could take his time killing the man who he viewed as a rival._

"_I'll kill you all!" Cyras cried, anger cresting in her voice. At that moment, she knew her life and the lives of her daughter and son was forfeit. The only thing that mattered to her was Vaene._

"_I don't think so!" Niccolo jabbed a blade into her side, but the point didn't break her skin. It only poked into her side._

_Cyras growled and struggled against the man. As he pressed the tip of the knife against her again, she found herself annoyed by both the strangeness of it and the digging feeling in her ribs. _

"_Even in death," Niccolo stated in that sickening calm voice he took with her before he beat her, "you are still mine. Arturis lost. When I'm finished with him, he'll wish that his father never raped his Glorendine whore of a mother."_

_She felt the prick again, but she didn't see Niccolo move. Like the thick goo on the blade, her emotions muddled together. Something inside of her screamed that it wasn't real. It rallied against the fogginess inside of her._

_Her eyes fluttered open._

"Shi fu doe?"

Cyras looked wildly into the blue eyes that threatened to pierce into her. She didn't care who the man that owned them was. Her only thoughts were dark, of Niccolo and what he was doing to Vaene at that moment.

It was not unheard of that a magick user develop later abilities. After all, an Arathean Magi could read the minds and futures of people. Cyras was sure that what was happening to Vaene at that moment was what happened to her in her dream.

Her heart continued to race in her chest. At that moment, Vaene was with Niccolo. Niccolo would be as gentle to Arturis as a tiger was to its prey. Because the Shade had deduced that her lover would know where she was, he would stop at nothing to glean a truth that Vaene had no access to. Then, he would take pleasure in killing him.

She had to leave this town, hope to Amés that she could liberate a horse, and rush to Vaene's defense. Her plan would fall apart before it began. She didn't know which side of Glorendt that she was on. It was unlikely that the wild men would trade their horses this far south. Finally, Vaene probably moved to the ven-plane by now. Still, it only took her moments to decide what to do.

As he repeated his nonsensical question, she took the chance and rolled away from the blade pressing into her ribs.

The cloth on the pallet bunched beneath her, giving her resistance. Bits of straw exploded in the aftermath and plunged onto the floor by the pallet like a diving bird. Small sticks lodged themselves in her fine hair.

Cyras grabbed a long knife from the wall, smearing the chalk with the side of her hand. White coated her flesh as if a bird landed on her hand and defecated. She looked more closely; it was a boy, no less than ten years her junior.

"Shi fu doe?" he growled again, anger raising in his tone. His bright eyes glittered with the fury in his voice.

"I don't understand you!" she shouted, to no avail. Frustration mounted inside of her, building as the standoff ticked by. She fingered the knife in her hand, feeling the ribbed edges of the grip.

The words were lost on the boy, but the commotion was not lost on Durzo.

_Oh_, she thought, enthusiastic. _It's him._

"Stop!" Durzo ordered, a stern boom to his voice. He burst in from another room, putting himself between them. Blint stood before her, shirtless and barefoot. Facing Cyras first, she could feel the death in his eyes. It reminded her of Vaene.

_Vaene._ Her dream of Vaene was just that. A dream. Niccolo was not descending upon them. Still, she felt the urgency to hurry back to her kingdom.

Despair chilled her skin, freezing the blood within her. Her breath stuck in her throat. She knew that Vaene was likely being tortured at that very instant. Instead of going to him, she was stuck in a mage's, or what Durzo called a wetboy's, home.

He turned to the other and spoke words that Cyras didn't understand. She could only grasp one word: her name.

_What if Durzo was speaking the truth last night? _she thought. She didn't think that she would be able to survive in a world where she could not understand simple words. Cyras would be forced to rely on Blint, and the Black Tigress depended on none.

Blint looked back at her with an annoyed expression on his face.

If they were anywhere in Arathea, he would have wiped that look off of his face. Her legend, alone, would have been enough.

_Durzo Blint would have been pissing himself_, she mused, _if I was back in the Olessan Empire. _Her mind tried to make sense of the situation. For a moment, she thought that Niccolo had sent Blint to punish her. He could have been an assassin that she never heard of. It would explain his hatred of the word and his elaborate story about harpies.

"This is Kylar, my apprentice."

She wasn't truly listening to him or seeing the sour expression on his face. Cyras was doing what she always did. Glancing at the windows and the door, she could not see an easy way out.

If only for him to take her outside to see this tailor, Cyras would go along with Durzo's delusional insights. Once in the open, she would be able to escape the both of them. Damn his magick to the death-plane. He would not hold her there to share her with his friends and apprentice.

"Night Angels, I thought you were going to kill each other from a lack of understanding."

Cyras lowered the weapon, hesitating momentarily. She didn't trust either of them enough to be the first to lower her guard. Because Niccolo would come after her like a fox after baby rabbits, she knew her master would offer a reward for her head. Judging by her surroundings, this man and his apprentice would most likely collect on it.

Even after the blade was on the table next to her, she was still ready for anything. Anticipation slept deep within her muscles, ready to surge forth if she felt threatened. Cyras felt like a tightly wound spring. A slight menacing step forward by either of them, and she would grasp the weapon again.

Looking towards the wall, she noticed the chalked outline of the long knife was smudged. There was a smear of white on her hand and upper arm. The wrinkles in the side of her hand lifted, becoming a noticeable line.

Like a darkening miasma, frustration cascaded over her. The emotion overcame her, pulling strongly on the fringes of her mind. As if it was a growing weed, it strangled all other thoughts.

"I'll be ready to go to Master Piccun's shortly," she told Durzo with a brief nod. The need for a bath exploded inside of her like an erupting volcano. While she said the words, they seemed to come from someone else, someone further away than she was.

As each second ticked by, the need to clean herself from the imagined dirt of his pallet and the night before pressed harder upon her. Glancing down at the exposed flesh of her arms, chest, and legs, she could feel the grim moving. She remembered, vividly, his unclean excitement entering her. She desperately wanted a bath.

"I would like a chance to wash up first, though, if that's alright," she continued. Cyras tried to put on an air of meekness, to demonstrate to Blint that she was prepared to be an acquiescent participant.

She knew he would be easier to get along with if he thought he was in control. Almost every man she knew wished to think that they dominated the actions of the Black Tigress. This man would be no different.

"That's fine," Durzo said without suspicion, but he was difficult to read. "I'll take that time to explain everything to Kylar. You know where the bath is."

Her body burned with the desire to remind him she knew exactly where the bath chamber was. After all, she was violated there. While he did not force her, she didn't want him, either. At least, she wouldn't admit otherwise, even to herself.

Again, the need to wash off his touch from last night swelled within her. Her body threatened to bolt towards the door. It was not Durzo's touch that caused her body to demand a bath; it was the same for every man. They made her dirty, and she needed to scour their presence from her.

Cyras smiled sweetly, and departed for the entrance to the bath chamber.

_Pleasant company, Cyras, _she reminded herself. That was the message that she wanted him to receive, but it was by no means what she truly intended on doing. She would blind him to the truth by niceties, lowering his guard. The first opportunity that presented itself would be the chance she took to escape from this lunatic.

"Oh, and Cyras," his gravelly voice rang out behind her.

She stopped, but she didn't turn to face him. Her back straightened, and, once more, her muscles coiled for the impending attack. Cyras sucked in her breath, ignoring the fear tugging at her. If he was going to try to beat her for being flippant earlier, then she was going to show him her full strength. No one would pummel her flesh again.

"Don't try anything. Be quick about it."

* * *

><p>Cyras took as short of a bath as her desire for cleanliness would allow. Being free of the lingering, imaginary illnesses that his touch could have infected her with, she found that she could tolerate Blint's abrasiveness.<p>

Her cheeks flushed with the remaining warmth of her washing, tickling her insides. The tingles jolted beneath her flesh. While she missed her bath chamber in Lucci, it felt nice to be clean. She could think clearly again.

Durzo had the opposite reaction. He seemed to be annoyed by the length of time she had taken, but he didn't say anything. He could have just been bothered about the situation in general. She was causing him trouble that he hadn't foreseen. Cyras hoped to cause him as much trouble as possible before the end.

The edges of her lips turned upwards into a hidden, sardonic smile that she hoped remained that way from him. If he had seen the concealed smirk, he remained silent. It was one of the things that she appreciated about her newfound acquaintance. While she harbored no ill will toward Blint, he was someone who was in her way.

She stepped out of the safe house, and she was hit by the sudden, undeniable realization that she was in no city that she had ever seen or heard about. Her surroundings were completely alien to her.

A myriad stench of detritus assaulted her senses. Although growing up on the streets of Glyndon, and then journeying in her early childhood in the Olessan Commons with her master, had exposed her to such smells, the putrid fragrance offended her.

A lump raised into the center of her throat. Her surroundings started to spin around her, blurring together in a blaze of hopelessness and poverty. She was not in Arathea; Cyras was sure of it. It crushed her, and she had to fight the urge to moan in despair.

Stumbling forward, she caught herself. She sucked in her breath and tried to make it look like she meant to move. Cyras was stuck in a strange world, one that's existence she had no knowledge of the day before. How was she to cope?

Cyras gritted her teeth, gnawing on the flesh on the inside of her mouth. Her lips puckered, pulling to the side. She stared at the musculature of Durzo's back.

The morning light angled down through the buildings and illuminated Blint's hair. Golden strands framed his neck, laying against the flesh. In the right light and circumstance, he resembled Vaene, the only one that she wanted to be with, the only one she loved.

Despite that she felt like she was wading through mud, she knew that she was not in the Olessan Empire, or for that matter, Arathea. Again, she felt her knees become rubbery.

Taking a deep breath, she gazed around her. Even though she looked, she truly wasn't seeing anyone or anything. She felt as if she was going to vomit. The pressure mounted inside of her, threatening to expel itself from her.

The Warrens (at least that was what Blint had called them) weren't much different in state than the Commons of Olessa, though the hodgepodge architecture of Cenaria was a stark dissimilarity. There was a uniformity in construction in Olessa, and to a lesser extent, Glyndon.

That consistency was what Cyras loved about Olessa and the Olessan Empire. It soothed her mind, giving comfort where there should have been none. There was nothing more beautiful than symmetry, to her.

Her heart rammed against her ribcage, contorting painfully inside of her. Agony twisted and coiled like a large python. Tears clung to the corner of her eyes, misting her vision of Durzo.

Nothing was uniform in Cenaria. Looking at the different mixture of buildings, she could not help but count the structures. That didn't help, either. There was nothing homogeneous in that city. She could very well lose her mind.

Cyras was human. She was an assassin; she killed without discrimination. Throughout her many years of training, she learned how to suppress her emotions. Now, they flowed freely through the hole that Vaene had pierced into her shields that had taken decades to raise.

_Vaene,_ her mind whispered. Her dream came roaring back. It seemed so vivid, and she was sure that it meant something. The Shade would have her sister poison Vaene, most likely with Aessi. Niccolo would take his time with Vaene, torturing him before killing him.

For the first time since her arrival, she believed in what Durzo had said. The fear mounted within her. Terror sank into the lining of her stomach, plunging within her like a battering ram.

The only thoughts running rampant through her mind were of her lover. Vaene needed her. At that moment, Niccolo was most likely having his sadistic pleasure with him. She was the only one who could stop her master. How would she return home? She needed the answer, immediately.

Cyras walked beside Durzo, keeping pace with his stride. The heels from her boots, or Kylar's, sank into the purulent, muddy ground. She was completely unaware of the fact that she was walking.

Agony tightened in her chest, igniting vulcan heat beneath her flesh. The agonizing flames seared inside of her like she was in the middle of a fire.

Her body seemed to be moving of its own accord. She certainly didn't have the will to move her feet after being stricken with the realization that everything Durzo had said was true. Cyras was in another world.

Refusing to inhale from the threat of illnesses that the air in the Warrens must carry, an ache grew in her breast. Her body fought with itself, demanding to breathe.

Her mind grappled with the thoughts of what could have brought her there. She centered upon the vener. Cyras swallowed hard.

She felt her will to live crumbling, tumbling inside of her like a decrepit, old wall. Vaene was going to die, or he was dead already. If he wasn't, he would be at Niccolo's mercy. With her gone, the Shade would deem her children worthless. He would snuff out everyone she loved. Olessa would be crushed under his bootheel.

Life held no meaning to her, anymore. No doubt, Durzo noticed it, but he, thankfully, brought no attention to it. He was scanning the crowds before them.

Briefly, her eyes stared down at one of the vials attached to her belt. As she walked, the milky liquid coated the inside of the vessel, sloshing up the sides like goat's milk in a glass.

_Death Viper Poison. _The poison was fatal to a normal person. One drop of it could cause a person to bleed out of all of the orifices on their body in a matter of minutes. It was one of the most efficient ways to eliminate a mark when no other special requirements were added to the contract.

Because of two immunities, it took a large amount of venom to affect Cyras. Her magickal talent provided a high amount of immunity to both magickal occurrences and natural poisons.

All the assassins had some form of immunity to the venom. Before any recruit was initiated into the Order, they were given a several doses of different types of venom. Many of the recruits died, but those who lived had more immunity than the common rabble.

_No._ She couldn't ingest the poison. It would take the entire vial, and she wouldn't be able to drink it fast enough in a crowded street. While Durzo may not have been the type, she was sure that someone out there would have stopped her if she attempted it.

Air expelled from her lungs, rushing out like a tempest.

As they journeyed through the streets and through her mire of despair, Cyras couldn't help but notice the reactions that Blint drew from the people they passed. It was a strange thing to witness, having been on the receiving end of it herself. Longing erupted inside of her.

Many were sure to give him a wide berth, and most completely avoided looking at him, as if such an act would only serve to provoke him. She could recognize fear, the palpable cushion that the general populace would give a person whether or not the legendary assassin garnered it or wanted it.

They strode through a group. Many of the people disbursed like the two of them were infected with leprosy. As they passed, she could hear some people murmur his name in fear and awe and reverence.

Yearning eclipsed most of the other emotions. Because she was thrust into a world that she didn't know, the people didn't know her. She had worked hard for her own legacy. Being the best assassin in Arathea had taken her decades. No one here had reason to fear the Black Tigress.

However, their reactions spoke volumes to her about this man. Such behaviors only cemented in her mind that he was telling the truth; he was a killer, and he was good at it.

After a time, Cyras began to noticed something else in the people they passed. They weren't only looking and reacting to Durzo, but she also felt their eyes upon her. She had their attention, but not in the way she had wished.

Coldness crept into her hands, freezing her fingertips to the bone. As she touched the flesh, piercing tingles erupted like the pricks of a thousand tiny needles. She clenched her hands into a fist and bore the tips of her nails into the skin of her palms.

Cyras felt naked walking through the streets of Cenaria. Because she only took things that she had a use for, she was without a weapon. She could have taken one of the daggers resting on one of the walls in Durzo's safe house, yet Cyras always prided herself in her ability to use other means to survive. Besides, she knew many ways of killing a man with only her bare hands. She didn't need a blade.

_No,_ she thought. It was not the reason why she wanted a weapon. Where the looks quickly darted away from the wetboy, they lingered on her interminably. She didn't inspire the amazement and apprehension that she did in Olessans.

"They're staring at me," she murmured, surprised at the fact that she had spoken aloud.

As she looked around her, she tried to find a way to escape. It would be easy to flee into the countryside. Even if she didn't know the lands surrounding Cenaria, it would have been better than having to withstand the ceaseless stares.

Coldness birthed within her mind, rolling inside of her, and twisting. Her arms shook, almost unseen to the naked eye. She pressed her fingernails further into her palms.

Her mind soothed, trying to count to the blessed number, seven, with staccato thoughts.

She could have gone back to the safe house, finding solace in the silence of his home. Cyras would rather have endured the questionings of the boy that she couldn't understand than have this many people aware of her presence. As Stewardess of the Olessan Empire, she was used to the looks and the whispers. These people were nothing like Olessans.

Cyras realized that she was in a completely different environment. She realized that she would have to rely on the man next to her. If she was going to survive, then she was going to need him. That meant that she would have to tell him things that she had told no one. Not even Vaene. The first thing that entailed would be admitting fear. That was difficult.

_Open your heart to love again_, the magi's prophetic words roared into her mind. Cyras knew admitting things that terrorized her would bring her closer to him. A person developed imaginary emotions for someone who looked out for her.

_No_, she thought. She was not in danger of losing herself to her feelings. She surrendered to a man once before, and he used her love to wound her. Cyras would never let anyone in again. She would rather die first.

Besides, he was nothing like her lover. While she recognized the lust of battle reflecting in Blint's eyes and his blonde hair, those were the only similarities between Vaene and him. The vener of love created her for Arturis, crafting her from him. She was in no danger of losing herself to him. Still, she couldn't help but move slightly closer to Blint.

"They are staring at my scars." She looked up at him with terror in her eyes. Dropping her hands to the lapels of the tunic, she tried to pull the material together. The mantle strained with the force, threatening to tear once more. She dared not tug at the taut fabric any more.

Durzo smirked and shook his head. He was nothing like Vaene. Before her deception, the man that she loved would never had taken pleasure from her obvious discomfort. The only similarities that existed between the two men were physical and superficial.

She crossed her arms over her chest, blocking his view of her. Her heart tightened in her chest, roaring painfully. Cyras frowned at the pain, trying her best to hide the weakness.

"They aren't staring at your scars, darling," he bit off sarcastically. Although Vaene had used the term as an endearment when he thought her duchess, Durzo's had no affection behind it. The words annoyed her. "If I was a gambling man, which I've been known to be on occasion, then I would bet that they were staring at your breasts."

_We can't get to Master Piccun's fast enough_, Cyras thought as she sidled a little closer still.

Thankfully, they weren't that far away.

Durzo led Cyras away from the main road and left the throng of wretched humanity behind them. They were away from the whispers behind the wetboy's back and the lecherous stares to the assassin's chest.

She felt relieved as they entered a small alleyway. Cyras had always hated being in large crowds. When she was working, a large crowd could easily give her away to her mark. It was the reason why she perfected the art of stealth. Given the right circumstances and disguises, she could be practically invisible.

Standing at the top of a set of stairs, she looked down to a somewhat affluent building. She gathered from the sign out front, a needle and thread, that it was Master Piccun's shop.

Durzo trotted down the steps, taking two at a time, but she waited, looking down at the stairs briefly.

She counted them. _Six._ Cyras swore under her breath. Heat assaulted her again, mixing with the confusion and agony of being in a different world. If she was any other person, she would have likely succumbed to the pressure mounting inside of her.

Despite the unusual circumstances, she thought that she was coping quite well. On the outside, Durzo wouldn't be able to tell that she was falling apart. She would look like another Cenarian. Calmness was one of the things that the Shade beat into Cyras since she was two years old, making her a master of emotions.

_Niccolo was not always a bad man_, she thought. He raped her, forced her into whoring, and violently ripped newborn children from her and killed them before her eyes. Yet, there was another side to him, a side that she pitied.

The Shade was always apologetic. He would often have Aria, one of her two apprentices, buy her something nice. Niccolo would kiss her forehead, touching his cold lips to her bruised flesh.

In Midcyru, the false Duke of Avis could not follow her. She had nothing to fear in Cenaria from him. If she were to survive, find a way back home, and stop Vaene's torture, she would have to rely on Blint. With the exception of Vaene Arturis and Vincento Vicente, Cyras had never relied on anyone. It would be a strange thing for her to do.

Cyras counted again. _Still six. _Her mind reeled, and she felt a wave of nausea pass through her body and lodge itself deep in the pit of her stomach. The smell of the Warrens cleaved her sense of smell, churning the queasiness. She was going to vomit.

Durzo turned towards her; irritation blazed deep inside his bright gaze.

Her foot hovered above the first step. She bit the flesh on the inside of her cheeks again, puckering her lips. Cyras stood still and stared at the steps as she tried to decide what to do. Telling Durzo that they could turn back and she would wear the clothes she was wearing was not an option.

"Are you coming?" he asked tersely, not hiding his annoyance.

She understood. If the events of the past twelve hours were even a tenth as trying for him as they were for her, then he had every right. Cyras had invaded his home like the renowned thief that she was and crashed into his life like a star hurtling from the heavens. Neither of them knew her purpose for that world or how long she was going to be there. Her presence there was an unforeseen quandary, and she hated the unexplainable.

Fear thrust through her like a blade, breaking the defenses of her mind. Terror flashed through her gaze as she stared at the stairs. It could be possible that there was no way to go home. Maybe, Niccolo had his personal magi send her to this plane of existence. Only a talented, powerful mage could do that. Cyras knew from experience how gifted Niccolo's magickal whore was.

With a deep breath, puffing out her chest and stretching the material across her chest, she stepped down, counting each step with a soft, staccato grunt. Anger burst within her, erupting from every cell in her body. It shadowed every single other emotion and slithered beneath her flesh.

The sudden emotion surprised her. Her heart raced. She clenched her fists at her sides. Cyras felt like she was watching herself, as if the wrath had pushed her out of her own body.

Before stepping down to the landing before the door, she stepped backward, going back one step. She felt as if she was being dragged down the carved stairs. For a moment, she was reminded of little marionettes. Cyras didn't know who was her puppet master.

Maybe, it truly was Niccolo's magi. The woman was immensely talented with elemental life-magick. Perhaps, she opened a portal and pushed Cyras through. Maybe, she was still controlling the assassin's reactions.

Lifting her head, she gazed at the man before her. Lust overwhelmed her as she imagined softness in the wetboy's piercing gaze. It was an unusual feeling, something that Cyras had only felt for one man before.

Again, she felt the feelings were not hers. Cyras was no longer under Niccolo's thumb, and she was determined to suppress the need for a man. She had been betrayed by too many to even have a hint of desire left in her body.

Of course, she imagined the warmth in his gaze. It was far too soon to have emotions like she was sure she was having. Vaene was the only one whom she could love, and he had deserted her. Blint could not affect her in that way. She wouldn't let him, and he had shown very few signs that he was even interested.

As her footsteps echoed on the ground, the nausea passed in a wave of relief.

The despair, ire, longing, and relief mingled together, blending into a heady mixture of emotions. She felt miserable and wanted to calm herself. Taking a deep breath, she steadied herself. There was no doubt that Blint had noticed. If he had, he didn't say a word.

Cyras smiled at him. It was bravado, a hidden defense mechanism that she used for Niccolo and those clients that could hurt her more than others. In the light of the desire flowing through her, Durzo represented both her best ally and biggest threat in that world.

Blint raised an eyebrow quizzically.

_Fuck_, she thought. Did he suspect that she felt like she was being torn apart from forces outside that world? How could you defeat something like that? _Will I ever go home?_

Reaching forward, she wrapped her hand around the handle of the door to the tailor's shop. They didn't have an appointment, but Cyras didn't care. She wanted something to distract her from the knowledge that she wasn't in Arathea and the emotions that she felt were not her own.

"Ready," she chirped as she stood beside him. Perhaps her voice was a little too cheery, the tone slightly force.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

In the time that Cyras and Durzo were waiting to be seen by Master Piccun, Durzo made sure to explain everything to her again. He told her that the old man's hands would inevitably wander, and that a simple refusal would be enough to back the lecher away. However, there was one problem with that proposal. She could not speak their language.

Fear swirled in her chest, dancing and pulling at the strings of her heart. Her brethren would have found some sort of amusement in that. An assassin feared nothing. To be fearful was to give a mark control. The perfect assassin never gave away control. It was what she preached to her own apprentices: her niece Aria and Judan. Under normal circumstances, she would have found the terror ironic, herself. This was far from normal circumstances.

"If the pervert touches me in the wrong place or tries something beyond that, I'll turn him into a castrato," Cyras stated, a grim note to her voice, not even taking the care to keep it down. Cyras didn't much care if anyone heard her. She wanted Piccun to hear, at least, even if he wouldn't understand her words.

_A good assassin never gives up control_, she reminded herself. Ever since she stepped (or landed on Blint, more appropriately) into that plane, circumstances jerked her ability to react to them out from under her. She felt dizzy, flushed from the exertion, and faint at the prospect of never returning to a world that made sense to her.

Briefly, she looked at Blint. Relief came over her. Cyras didn't know how she would have reacted if she didn't come into contact with someone who could understand her. She was sure that she would have been lost━ or, worse, gone mad. It would have been bloody, at any rate.

Her stomach rolled, pitching back and forth like a storm-stricken ship. She found it hard to rely on anyone with the exception of a few. Those who she called close friends had to prove themselves immensely.

Durzo had yet to show her what he was capable of. She knew that strength immeasurable slept within the body covered by his slightly lavish garb and feeble attitude. Her wrists felt the power of the magick he called Talent. Still, she hadn't seen him work a blade. A stab to the heart would render any magickal being dead, at least in Arathea.

She felt that foreign pull to him again, roiling deep inside of her, a molten pool threatening to burst through the surface in all it's splendid glory. A fog surrounded her, enveloping her thoughts in a heady cocoon of promised ecstasy to come. Cyras found it hard to think clearly; her eyes wandered to his groin in the absence of conscious control. She felt a swoon coming and quickly regained herself.

"He'll be lucky if he doesn't end up dead." She pursed her lips together as she glared into Blint's light eyes. Cyras was thankful for the diversion to focus on anything but him. The strange sensation that overcame her when she was with him was alien to her.

"That's exactly why I'm going to go in with you while he takes your measurements," Durzo countered. "I'll be able to keep an eye on him. And, more importantly, you."

"I think you just want to see me nude again," Cyras murmured, her voice slightly too warm. She felt foolish by the way that her biting comment was delivered.

"Darlin'," Durzo drawled, "if I wanted to see you naked again, you'd be naked. But now that you mention it, I don't mind the opportunity."

Again, she felt something was wrong with her. Looking towards the closed curtain that obscured the back of the store, she was sure that she could hear rhythmic grunting and slapping coming from beyond. She couldn't shake the feeling that Durzo was right, and given the opportunity, she wouldn't mind romping with him behind that curtain. She also couldn't shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong with her.

_No doubt, it was another client giving Piccun the usual payment for his services,_ she thought. The disgust poured over her as if the sounds and illusory visuals were storm clouds releasing their torrent of rain.

An urge to punch Durzo erupted within her. Cyras fought to remain in control of her emotions. The entire scenario began to crash around her, battling at the defenses of her sanity. She wondered how long it would be before she gave in.

"Just a few months ago," she explained, turning to Durzo. "I would have fucked the old man without thinking about it. Then, I would have fucked you. Or maybe, I'd have fucked the both of you at the same time. And that would have been not one tenth of my night."

Shame spread inside of her as she remembered how far she went under the Shade's thumb. As he grew feeble, Niccolo used her as his blade and bargaining chip. She wondered how much he was paid when she was used to smooth over some of the Glorendine guild's transgressions.

The brief time that Vaene had loved her had transformed her, giving her courage that she couldn't begin to understand. If it was not for him, she would have never broken the yoke that her master had strapped around her neck decades ago.

"Things are different now, Blint. I told you, I won't whore for anyone again. That time of my life is over. If it came down to whoring or starving, I would go to the ven-plane gladly."

"Ven-plane?" He lifted his head, turning towards her. Their knees touched.

Everything about this man was strange to her. She felt as if her body was fused to the chair, and she couldn't move. Warning signals blazed like a wildfire in her mind, telling her to extricate herself from the situation.

"My body is for the man I love or no one," she continued, ignoring his question. Sitting in the parlor of the tailor's shop, she didn't feel like getting into the semantics of the different planes of existence that Aratheans believed in.

"I commend your new found purity," Durzo uttered with a sly smirk. She could see the protest in his eyes and the lecture on the tip of his tongue. To her relief, they were interrupted.

At that moment, a beautiful, young woman with copper hair stepped out from behind the curtain, a disgusted look written plainly on her face. Cyras recognized that look as soon as she saw it.

_That would be the other patron_, Cyras thought, sardonically. She had worn that expression herself many times after Niccolo and the many clientele in his business had had their way with her. Disgust and anger at herself, the Shade, and the other men clouded her mind.

The other woman strode toward the door and left without so much as a glance at either of them. Shortly after, an old man, glistening with sweat, appeared in the front of the shop: _Master Piccun_, Cyras gathered.

"Master Tulii," he greeted Blint. "What can I do for you this morning?"

Cyras resisted the urge to question Durzo on the reason why Piccun was addressing him as _Master Tulii_. If a wetboy was like an assassin (or her definition of an assassin), then it would make sense that he would have crafted different identities.

"This is Cyras, my niece," Durzo replied, cocking his head towards her. "She needs a dress, nothing too flashy." She was smart enough to smile when he motioned to her. Piccun looked Cyras up and down, his gaze lingering on exposed flesh for far too long.

Wrath flashed within her, reminding her of Durzo's words. If she told the old lecher to back off, then he most certainly would. At the very least, she hoped he would. But then, he wouldn't understand words.

"I have just the thing in mind," Piccun answered. "Come into the back dear. We'll get your measurements, then we'll have ourselves a bit of fun." He smiled, and Cyras felt her stomach roll at the sight of it. The sickening grin reminded her of Niccolo, and for a moment, a wave of terror passed over her. She could understand the intent behind the words even if she couldn't understand the words themselves.

With a brief glance at Durzo, Cyras followed the old man to the back of the shop, ducking behind the curtain. Part of her hoped that he had noticed the palpable fear reflecting in her eyes. She needed his protection. Cyras felt like a hare caught in the sight of a practiced crossbowman.

It was not the first time that she felt as such. In the wisdom she had gained over the years, she knew it would not be the last time. There was much unknown about that world to her. While the corrupted, sickening undercurrent resembled Olessa, it was still different. If she were to survive, she would need to make allies. _Blint was the first of a few_, she hoped.

Although she needed him, another part of her hoped that he didn't read the terror. It was part of being what she was. Cyras couldn't allow anyone to guess her true emotions; they could be used against her. That knowledge ingrained itself inside of her heart, making it as autonomous as breathing. It was a hard habit to break.

Cyras wanted to take care of herself. She knew she was more than capable of handling things herself, but Durzo wouldn't have liked her way of doing of things. At the very least, she would have cost him a business relationship; at the very worst, Piccun wouldn't draw breath on that plane, anymore.

"First thing's first," Piccun declared, "I'll need you to strip. A woman of your beauty shouldn't be cloaked in such tattered fashion." She looked at him with a confused expression. The elderly man tugged at her clothing and pointed at the floor as he repeated the request.

"What's wrong with her?" he asked Durzo.

"She's mute," he responded matter-of-factly.

As she lifted her hands and gripped the corners of her lapels, Cyras regretted coming there. She could have stayed in Blint's home naked or in the frock. She wasn't worried about anyone seeing her breasts, or her womanhood, for that matter. Many men had seen those parts as her master ruled over her with an iron fist. It was her scars that gave her pause.

Durzo and Piccun would see every mark that Niccolo had left on her in stark detail. She wouldn't be able to hide them. Puckered flesh would stand out in vividness. The morning light would surely accent the wrinkled, ruined skin, drawing attention to the Shade's indifference when it came to her pain and his pleasure.

Heat surged throughout her, rising as if someone had lit a fire deep within her. She looked to the curtain, judged the distance, and wondered how quickly she could flee the shop before Blint was able to react.

_It's a foolish idea_, she countered, _and one that would fail immediately_. Cyras was much smaller and quicker than Durzo, but he had the strength that she lacked. His legs were longer than her own so he would be able to catch up to her quickly. There would be no avoiding the humiliation that surely was to come.

"Well, come on," the tailor insisted. "No time to be shy now. I'm not about to take your measurements with clothing on." His expression and tone conveyed the urgency of the command.

Clutching the lapels of the tunic like a shield, her gaze flickered over and landed on Blint again, who had followed them into the back. The fear glinted in the depths of her eyes. She cursed her weakness.

Durzo nodded briefly, urging her to comply.

Indecisiveness caused her to pause. Even with Durzo's support, she found it hard to lower the frock. Gathering her will again, she darted her eyes to the floor. She had to do this. There was no way out. A plan did not come together in her mind.

Cyras had to trust Durzo to stop the tailor if the other man took things too far. If she was not in the situation that she was in, she would have found trusting anyone else amusing. She had always relied on herself. Still, she didn't want to slight the man that she was staying with.

She inhaled deeply and tried to bury the apprehension building inside of her. Like a snake, she slithered from the dark trousers and undergarments. The tunic puddled on the floor as if it was water.

Neither men spoke of her scars. Although she didn't truly know Blint, he had told her that he didn't care about her scars the previous night. From her own experiences, she found that hard to believe. She steeled herself against the assaulting memory, bracing herself.

Piccun's eyes, on the other hand, widened at the severity and number of them. She would guess that it had been quite some time since he had seen a woman so disfigured. Niccolo liked his pleasure, and it didn't matter how much pain he inflicted to achieve it. The more agony he caused, the more excitement he found.

"So," Piccun said as he began measuring, "how long has she been in Cenaria? Not long by the look of things."

Cyras kept her gaze on Durzo. She was flooded with memories of the night before, of the sensation of him. A wave of pleasure washed through her, followed by that foreign unwanted desire.

Again, an unexplainable miasma overcame her, clouding her thoughts. As she glanced down his body, everything about him seemed amplified: his eyes lighter, his body more well-defined, and his face gentler. Cyras couldn't help but be attracted to him. She wanted him.

When she was close to Durzo, she felt as if she was slowly losing herself to a befuddling fog. The vapors choked her, and she couldn't think of anyone but this intriguing wetboy.

The confusion was perplexing to her. She had felt lust twice in her life before. First, Vincento was able to get through the shields around her. When the Shade ordered the other assassin to rape her as a punishment for both of them, the Panther became gentle. When asked about it later, he told her he didn't fuck on command. The virile man intrigued her, bringing forth something inside of her that she thought was dead.

Perhaps, the large chink in her chimerical fortifications began with him. While she was not foolish enough to love Vincento, she could appreciate a strong man like him as many women did. She was comfortable enough to go to him and allow him to comfort her. Then, Vaene came into her life.

Vaene was the only one she wanted to be with. He was the man that she loved, and she would preserve her body like a priestess protecting her temple. She would die before another man would touch her against her will.

_Except that Blint did more than touch me,_ she reminded herself, bitterly. She knew she should have been feeling guilt at betraying her love, but the unfamiliar, bewildering mist coated her mind like venom on a blade.

Piccun stretched the long piece of rope up the inside of her thigh. He muttered something under his breath. Tiny bumps lifted on her flesh from the twine.

"One could say that she simply fell back into my life," Durzo answered.

She smiled at Durzo. Her mouth turned upwards in the soft smirk. Looking at him through lowered lashes, her eyes glinted. For once, since Vaene had refused her, there was no hostility.

_I'm attracted to a ma_━

One of Piccun's hands wandered as he measured, veering to the apex of her legs. A finger curled against her, and the wetness of her womanhood was audible.

Cyras dreaded the following moments, and it came with as much terror as she thought it would. This tailor would think that she was attracted to him. He wouldn't take no as an answer. Once a man perceived that a woman wanted to be fucked, he took her, even by force, if need be.

The truth of it was even more horrifying to her. She had been staring at Durzo like a foolish noble girl with stars in her eyes and dreams dancing reflecting brightly in her gaze.

Durzo's face remained a mask of neutrality. There was nothing in it that she could read to tell her if he had heard the sound with the exception of a small glitter of curiosity hidden deep within his pale gaze.

She whirled around. Her hair exploded against the sides of her face. Cyras was no longer concerned about her nakedness. The only thing that mattered to her at that moment was her outrage at the violation she had received from this old pervert masquerading as a tailor. It remained the same as Arathea. The people and places may have changed, but the evil in their hearts was all too familiar.

Piccun's eyes widened in fear and surprise.

Her eyes flared violently as she glared at the tailor. She reached out and grasped his crotch. The cloth bunched under her hand. Cyras twisted the handful painfully as she squeezed tightly.

The tailor yelped like a small dog. He back away from her, but her grasp tightened. Piccun could not move; he was stuck. His mouth opened in a grimace. The rope plummeted to the floor.

"Cyras!" Durzo boomed. He stood up and brought himself to his full height. The transition between disguise to wetboy was flawless. She couldn't tell where Master Tulii ended and Durzo Blint began.

Still, she didn't care about the wetboy's reaction. There was only one thing that mattered to her. No one would have their way with her without her permission again.

Durzo extended his arm and gripped her shoulder. The warmth from his hand radiated into her flesh.

Twisting her wrist to emphasize, she felt Piccun's rigid flesh slide beneath her clenching grasp.

His eyes widened again. He bobbed his head, and sweat beaded on his forehead. It spiraled down his wrinkled forehead and dripped off his chin.

"Cyras," Durzo stated in a language, her language, that Piccun wouldn't understand. "That is enough."

She turned her wrist violently. Fury flared deep inside her gaze. A stifled, squealing screech released itself from the tailor. His eyes locked with Cyras'. A surge of Blint's Talent released from his hand. His grip bit painfully into her shoulder. Having made her silent point, she released the tailor. Piccun fell backward into a chair, coughing and spitting.

Exhilaration rushed over her and soaked into her as if she were submerged in a sea of pleasure. The emotion sank deeply within her body, feeding a part of her that she would never allow to die. Cyras enjoyed what she did as an assassin and as a woman.

She felt no pity or remorse for the aberrant tailor. He should have known to keep his hands off of her. If they were in Arathea, Master Piccun would have.

With the exception of one time, Cyras never felt sorrow when she defended herself or completed a contract. Killing was a seductive act to her. The grip of a dagger caressed her skin like a familiar lover. Her master honed her into a fine blade, and the woman would do what she was bred to do.

Cyras turned slightly and met Durzo's eyes, trying to decipher any emotion lurking in him. He shook his head slowly in disbelief and fury.

Despite not knowing what he was like when he was mad and the growing anxiety in her stomach at that thought, she would not let him take the moment from her. She was not the small woman he thought she was. While she needed him in that world, she would not debase herself again. Cyras could only smile at the victory.

* * *

><p>"That was unnecessary," Durzo growled once he and Cyras had gotten into his carriage.<p>

As she sat there, she leaned backwards and felt the plush fabric with her hand. When she was growing up in Lucci after the guild and the Shade, she was used to the lap of luxury. Many would have thought that her master's teachings would erode away like rock corroding beneath rain water.

Cyras was glad to be sitting. She was tired of walking through this strange place. A thumping sensation throbbed in the center of her forehead, radiating outward, encompassing the entirety of her head. The pain arced like lightning across a stormy sky.

The carriage was not as elaborate as the one she was given when she was named Duchess of Lucci. The seams in the seat were starting to split at the end of the bench. Hers was made out of a darker wood.

As strange as the city was, the ride was stranger still. Two large, black stallions pulled the vehicle. Their muscles rippled under the leather yoke thrown across their burly chests. Long, dark manes covered the sides of the reins.

She hadn't really heard Durzo; her attention was locked firmly on the horses.

Longing crept over her, slithering beneath her flesh. She craved the sights and sounds of her own world like an addict would crave his drug of choice. Cyras would do anything to find a way back home and experience the familiar sights and sounds of Arathea.

_What if I never return home?_ Cyras panicked. The possibilities of such an event were slim. All the assassin knew was that she was transported by a mysterious blue light. A magi, one that held untold power, had to be responsible.

Crossing her arms across her chest, she continued to stare at the equine beasts. She bit the inside of her mouth as her thoughts raced like a stampede. The memories of her world veered all over, sprinting along the edges of her mind.

_Vincento. Vaene. Her children. They may as well all be dead_, she mourned. Cyras was not ready to move on and lose hope just yet. Still, in her analytical mind, she knew that there was no hope for her to return. She would never again feel Vincento's loyalty, warm the bed of Vaene, or feel the touch of her children embracing her.

Niccolo did not represent a threat anymore, either. Unless he was behind the magickal Olessan that transported her to this world, he could not follow her. He did have magi in his service, though. Ruling the entirety of the Arathean underworld, merchants, priests, and even corrupted kings, bent a knee to him.

Magi were suppose to be infallible. Yes, some took money to relieve the nobility of the unforeseen consequences of their lavish lifestyle. Still, they were under the king's command. They were suppose to live to a higher standard than most.

_Of course,_ she thought, _there are unscrupulous people in every profession. _Some tanners shorted their customers on the quality of hide. Blacksmiths tried to sell flawed blades, and tailors were sometimes lecherous, nefarious old men.

Even assassins were not immune to it. There were certain assassins that regretted every kill that they made. They were only killers by necessity. Some regretted taking the contract on one mark, and they let that event change their entire lives.

Cyras turned her attention back to the horses in wonder. She felt strange seeing the noble creatures harnessed like common beasts.

Amazement left her befuddled. The entire world seemed to tilt, and everything that she once knew shifted.

"Are you ignoring me?"

"I'm sorry," Cyras replied. She tore her gaze from the astonishing animals and focused on her companion. The soles of her feet pressed flatly to the floor. Folding her hands together, she placed them in the center of her lap. Her brow knitted downward. He shook his head like he did back at Piccun's.

"It's just..." Cyras lifted her arm and swept her arm before her. "You have horses. _Two_ horses." Excitement bubbled inside of her and foamed like water from a pot over a fire. "I've only seen more than one together a handful of times."

"Why is that a big deal? They're just dumb animals."

Shock jolted through her like a lightning bolt crashing down from the heavens and striking her. He truly didn't understand how valuable the animals were. They weren't in Arathea. She bit down on the flesh in her mouth again as she tried to find words to explain her fascination with the animals.

"Not where I'm from," she objected. She couldn't imagine Abatos, her faithful steed, as being a dumb animal. The large black stallion showed more intelligence than some commoners. "We'd never use a horse for pulling a carriage. We usually used oxen."

The weight of being sent to another world began to press down on her again like a large cat toying with a mouse. She swallowed hard, turning her attention to the people outside of the carriage.

Tiredness seeped from her muscles, sliding over her like slime floating atop a pond. It threatened to grab her body and pull her underneath the weary undercurrent. Moisture clung to the corners of her eyes, burning the orbs, lining her thick eyelashes, and blurring her surroundings.

"There are only one hundred horse herds living in the jungles north of Olessa." she explained. Lifting her hand, she swiped at the corner of her eyes. Wetness trailed in a thin line across the side of her index finger. "The jungle is a desolate place, filled with death at every turn. Various species of dragons, the ultimate predator, make their home in the steamy flora. A dozen variety of poisonous vegetation give them cover. Plus, Arathea's deadliest snake hunts there."

Blinking, she fought off the exhaustion weighing on her muscles. Her eyes burned with the fatigue coating her like poison running over a blade's edge.

"They are a shy species. I ventured into the Veneran Wilderness more than a thousand times, and I have only seen them a handful of times. A tribe of wildmen ventures into the wilderness, avoiding the jungle's predators, and secures five horses for the annual horse auction. Because they are so rare, only the aristocracy can afford to purchase them. "

Durzo reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of garlic. He unsheathed his dagger, placed the edge against the herb, and sliced against the skin.

"The horses have a wedge-shaped head, large expressive eyes. They have a high tail carriage, lean muscles, and very large legs. Since they have to avoid the predators of the jungle, they became as intelligent as the large, dorsal finned fish in the Western Sea. Horses communicate with each other, travel in herds, and are extremely social animals. They, also, have their own language. My own horse is more profound than some of the commoners that I know."

He placed the piece of garlic in his mouth and chewed it. The sulfuric aroma drifted to her in their small confines, and her stomach twisted in disgust.

"There are legends scribed about the animals. Some say that they are sensitive to the magickal lay lines that crisscross Arathea. Because of this, their testes are made into pouches." She lowered her hand and touched one of the sacks adhered to her dark belt. "Also, because of the durability, many merchants prefer a horse's scrotum as a purse to keep their sovereigns. Imagine. A coin purse as a coin purse."

"Well, here they are just dumb animals," Blint sneered, clearly reaching a new level of annoyance.

Cyras shook her head. He was not the only who was irritated. The weight of being in a different place smothered her as each minute ticked away into nothingness. She felt like she was going to faint, and she tried to regroup her emotions and thoughts.

"Listen to me, Cyras. That!" he pointed emphatically back at Piccun's. "That was unnecessary! I'll be damn lucky if he'll make any more grays for me."

She felt a twinge of fear, but it passed quickly. Niccolo had lobbed far worse insults at her when he was angry. The Shade was truly frightening in his rage. He blew hot and cold, bristling with desire, remorse, and sadism. Cyras would never know what to expect from him because he was dubious like the shade in a shadow.

"You can't just blunder about, threatening random people. What the fuck is the matter with you?"

"I told you, Blint," Cyras spoke nonchalantly. "I said, 'If he touches me inappropriately, I'm going to relieve him of his manhood.'"

_He did more than touch me inappropriately_, she bristled. When his hands roamed her body, he triggered thoughts of the many patrons who bought her services and Niccolo who demanded that she banged them. She wanted to escape those thoughts, leaving them in Arathea.

"He got off lucky if you ask me, though I think he might have trouble getting off in the next day or two. Serves him right. Pervert."

"A whore calling a lecher a pervert," Durzo muttered, as if to himself. "What wonders."

Anger flashed inside of her, igniting indignation deep within her. Like a flash fire, it abated just as quickly. She knew that Blint didn't know the circumstances of her whoring or the fact that the one person who shouldn't desire her, her master, tortured her emotionally, mentally, physically, and sexually.

Turning her head, she brought her gaze back to him. It shouldn't have mattered what this man thought of her. He shouldn't have had the power to make her wrathful. As she dealt with the fact that she was in a strange world, she also felt as if she was not in complete control of her body. There was something else effecting her actions. Cyras didn't know what that outside, or inside, force was.

"Listen, Durzo," she sighed. She lifted her arm and pushed her hand through her tangled mass of hair. "I do make amends if my actions wrong someone. I do not know what your _grays_ are, aside from the fact that they have to be clothing if you are commissioning them through Piccun. However, I will make it up to you."

"How?"

"As a study of men, I will speak in the other language that Master Piccun knows." She arched her eyebrow and smiled at him. "Gold. Well, Sovereigns if we were in Arathea. I am sure that our coin is worthless in Cenaria."

Curiosity lurked deep within his gaze.

"I have been thinking of the things that transferred with me to this world," she admitted. "A blade, and my belt. Both of those items have a magickal elements wrapped around them. The pouches on my are made from horse scrotums. As I said before, we believe that equine creatures are magickal. Like the merchants, I kept a portion of my contract dues in there."

_It's more than a portion_, she thought. Vaene had her exiled. The only coin that she had to her name was the payment for her last contract services. Before leaving to confront her beloved, she stuffed the coin purse on her belt as full as possible. She knew she would have to make a hasty retreat; she just thought he would be by her side.

She wouldn't tell him what she kept in her satchels circling around her waist. There were many things: Azoth, commonly known as Vener's Tears, pouches of medicinal herbs, vials of a variety of venom and poisons, and her sovereigns.

"The sword is also said to contain some magickal properties. Quelanan was said to be wielded by none other than our deity, Amès. I don't believe that. I believe that some magi or priest placed their life-force into the blade."

"Speaking of arousal, I could have sworn you were aroused," Blint ignored her explanation. He raised an eyebrow at her. "What was that about?"

"Nothing," Cyras murmured as she looked away quickly. She wasn't about to show her embarrassment to the wetboy. In the act of showing any emotion, it would become her ruin. After all, it was how she became entangled with the heir to the Olessan throne. Emotions were the death of someone who did what she had to do.

Knowing what she had to do did not make the decision to rely on Durzo for support as she got to know the world of Midcyru any easier. Long before she was aborted from the world of Arathea like an unwanted child, she decided that she would only depend on herself. No man would be able to penetrate her defenses again.

"I was thinking of. . .someone else," she admitted.

"Who?"

The carriage started to move. Sounds of horse hooves reverberated through the interior. If Cyras was not as fascinated as she was, she would have been enchanted watching the beasts move.

"Vaene," Cyras responded, looking away. She hoped he would buy the lie, and if he didn't, she wouldn't change her story.

She liked the power gained through lying. Cyras could shape someone's perceptions of an event with a few simple words. In her line of work, one had to slip easily into deceptions. An assassin easily approached their marks through lying. To the point of compulsion, she practiced the art often.

"Who's Vaene?" he asked without missing a beat.

Cyras felt a triumphant wave pass through her. She had successfully steered the conversation away from the events at Piccun's, though she wasn't much more comfortable talking about Arturis with him. It would be like tearing the scab off of a festering wound that would take much more time to heal.

_Heal?_ Her mind blistered in anger. There would be no healing where Vaene was concerned. He was like a blemish on her soul. It did not matter how many times she scrubbed her emotions raw of him, the memory always remained.

"He was the second to the last of my marks, the only time that I failed," she answered, being intentionally vague. A part of her wanted to confound him for what he placed her through at Piccun's.

Another part of her didn't want to dwell on Vaene. As she remembered the shades of gray of her lover's eyes, sadness dug into her heart with its talons. Cyras knew that she would never again see him. The agony slicing through her was not over his death. She could not mourn someone that she did not know was dead. Being thrust into Midcyru without any hope of returning, she would never know his fate. It would haunt her until either she took her own life or someone else did.

"A wetboy never fails. I seem to remember you telling me that you didn't either," Durzo sighed. His raptor gaze bore holes into her, staring deeply into her damaged soul. She felt uncomfortable under the weight of his gaze. "What's your excuse?"

"Love," Cyras spoke, her eyes drifting to the horizon.

Even now, amidst misery of knowing Vaene was probably dead and she would never see him again, she held onto hope. She prayed to Amès that her lover knew about her disappearance. He would have survived her sister and Niccolo's attack. King Vaene Arturis of the Olessan Empire would assemble the magi, and they would find a way to bring her home.

_Hope,_ she sneered. Hope was food for the downtrodden and the weak. Cyras would not rely on Vaene to bring her home. If she could not find a way herself, she would adapt her life to fit in Cenaria.

Her heart beat painfully in her chest, sounding like a cry from a wounded creature. She swallowed the lump in her throat. It burned like sparking embers sliding inside of her and settled like a rock in her stomach.

"Ah, love," Durzo laughed, grimly. "Relationships are rope, and love. . .love is a noose."

Exhaustion crept inside of her again. It fogged over her mind, and she was not quite sure what he was saying. Bringing her gaze back to his, she saw his mouth move and barely heard the words.

"So you hanged yourself pretty good, I take it."

"I'm here, aren't I?" she bit off. She felt uncomfortable talking about anything with Durzo. Likely, he was doing a mental list to see if she could cope in that world or if she was going mad.

Tiredness pulled at the edges of her mind. It dug its claws into her, refusing to let go. She felt as if any minute the world would black out. There was only so much one person could take. Cyras nearly reached her limit.

"Yes, but I'm sure you will find your way back."

Cyras didn't answer him. The answer to his question frightened her. Despite all of her armor guarding her heart, all of her deceptions to Vaene, all of her bargaining with herself, she still loved the man. Even across the planes of existence, King Arturis became a thorn in her side.

As she stared at the clouds, she could not help but wonder if Blint would become one, too.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

"This house had better be a little more comfortable than the other," Cyras stated flatly as they rode through the affluent east side. Her blond hair swayed with each jolt of the carriage, brushing against the rounded curve of her cheek. As she bit the flesh inside her cheek, she stared out of the square window.

Because most of her experience with luxury was earned as the Steward's wife and later, as the Stewardess of the Olessan Empire, Cyras was used to the trappings that came with such a life. Of course, some of her lesser furnished safe houses, mainly in the Commons of Olessa and the slums of Lucci and Glyndon, featured a pallet. It had been some time since she had had to sleep on one.

Pain arched through her back, racing beneath the puckered flesh. She inhaled; her eyes flaring aridly with the agony. Cyras was getting older, and her body wasn't reacting like it had in her youth. Twisting her upper body to the side, she produced a sharp, distinct crack from her vertebrae, the sound snapping through the air.

"I'm not going to be spending another night on a pallet. That might suit you _wetboys_ well enough, but I'm more accustomed to the finer things." She glared at him as the carriage lurched from side to side on the rough cobblestone.

"That's all well and good," Durzo replied, disinterestedly. "If my accommodations aren't up to your standards, you could always seek lodging elsewhere." He tilted his head up and stared at her. His light gaze punctured through her newly erected defenses, ramming into the core of her soul. "The Blue Boar, maybe. They have plenty of beds there if you don't mind stained sheets."

_What is the Blue Boar?_ Cyras didn't like that she was in an unfamiliar plane. As an assassin, she relied on her knowledge to provide an advantage over her marks. Without knowing a simple place like he did, she lost her footing and stumbled as if the groung had been ripped out from beneath her like a throw rug.

Without understanding the environment, she opened herself to illnesses. Cyras wondered what sicknesses ran rampant through the lands and how similar they were to the Arathean plane. When she visited Glorendt, it would not matter how many scalding baths she took. She would always return with some sort of illness.

As she puckered her lips, she rubbed the palms of her hands together. Suddenly, she longed for another bath. She wanted to lock herself inside his safe house and never venture out. She didn't want any contact with anyone, including Durzo.

"You could even earn some coin there."

_Asshole!_ Her mind screamed at him. At that moment, even if he did resemble Vaene slightly, he reminded her of her master. The terror spread inside of her, and she squashed it. Niccolo couldn't hurt her there. She had a chance to start over, but all Cyras wanted to do was return. Either way, she had to deal with Durzo.

Cyras fought the overwhelming urge to slap him with much difficulty, electing to keep things as civil as possible for the time being. She knew she wasn't being fair to him, but her emotions were running away from her. Her chest pushed against the thin tunic as she tried to steady her breathing.

"I don't need coin, Blint," she uttered, "and I'm not staying in a whorehouse." Her tone grew dangerous and sharp like the blade of a broadsword. The words came from her, tumbling forth.

_Why do I care what he thinks? _In truth, and the truth could be a very ugly thing once confronted, Blint intrigued her. However, a man of his natural presence would fascinate most of the women in Olessa.

"As long as this house has a bed, I'll be fine," she acquiesced.

"It has a bed."

"Good. How much longer until we are there?" The carriage stopped.

"We're here."

This particular safe house wasn't much of a step up from the last one she had been in. It was clearly the cheapest house on the street, in far worse shape than the buildings on either side. Like an unsightly blemish on the East Side, it stood in the middle like a weed in the royal gardens.

She smiled as the reason why he chosen this house came to her like a hurricane breaking upon the shore. It was the reason why Nysuki Nesard, her identity in the Eastern Kingdoms, kept a small, run down abode. Cyras deduced he had chosen the place just for the same reason: so as not to stand out.

The inside wasn't any more impressive, though it was impeccably clean. Like the other safe house, weapons lined the walls. They were outlined by a thick, white chalk. The order and neatness comforted her, but she couldn't help but think of more appropriate places and positions in which she could store the items.

Her gaze landed on the bed. It wasn't as large as her bed in the Luccan Estate or the fourposter in the royal bedchamber of the Alabaster Citadel, the crowning architectural achievement of Olessa.

However, it _was_ a bed, at least, though one thing laying in the middle of it stopped Cyras cold in her thoughts: a pair of linen undergarments. The ivory contrasted against the dark blanket, glimmering like a rare jewel.

"I thought you weren't a ladyboy?" she laughed. As she bent down and picked up the discarded garment, she arched one of her eyebrows.

Durzo quickly snatched the frock away from her, horrified that such an oversight could have occurred in one of his houses. Cyras could tell that he liked to keep things clean and orderly, and in that regard they were similar. Like her, something left behind like that could throw off his entire balance, though, also like her, he appeared to regain it quickly.

She enjoyed seeing him like that. Judging by the way he kept his homes, Durzo was one of those who had to remain in control. Seeing him lose a tiny bit of it would be a rare thing to witness.

"Those aren't mine, idiot," he grumbled as he wadded the garment in his hand. "Enough with the lady boy comments."

Once more, she lifted her eyebrow and looked at him as if he was her prey.

"I'm a man."

"So those must have been left behind. . ." Cyras enjoyed the game, playing with practiced precision. The cat and mouse game attracted her to Vaene. She found the chase to be intoxicating.

She walked over to the bed and sat down. As she tilted her head upward, she looked up at him through lowered eyelashes. "I thought I said I wouldn't be staying in a whorehouse."

"This isn't a whorehouse," he responded curtly.

Cyras picked up on his annoyance, and she couldn't help but smile. As long as she could keep him frustrated, she would be in control. She wasn't about to give it to a man she barely knew and didn't trust.

"Vener's balls, Durzo!" she sneered. Cyras crossed her legs and felt the cloth trousers slide with her movements. "What crawled up your ass?"

"Oh, I don't know. It could have been the bath being interrupted by a nude woman materializing on top of me. It could be the fact that no one understands you but me. Perhaps, it's the fact that you could have strained my business relationship with Piccun. You're disrupting my life, and you've only been in it for two days. I don't like disruptions."

_That's another thing we have in common._ She didn't want to admit that she had anything in common with this man. The last person she thought she shared traits with had abandoned her. He broke the defenses around her heart and left her wounded and vulnerable.

"So, you don't like me, then?" She couldn't help but leak a small amount of genuine concern into her voice. Durzo was the only person that understood her, and she knew that she needed him. Again, the thought sounded foreign to her.

She chastised herself internally. Cyras shouldn't have cared what he thought of her. His opinion should have had as little effect on her as one of Niccolo's thugs. Her only concern should have been getting home, getting to her children and rescuing Vaene from the fate that her master planned for the King of Olessa.

But Vaene had abandoned her. Her sister seized her children after Niccolo announced who she was and her titles were stolen from her. While Cyras teased Blint about his meager possessions, she truly didn't care about titles or the accouterments of the nobility. The only thing in her life that held meaning to her was her skill as an assassin, her children, and Vaene. She had no one.

"I didn't say that," Durzo corrected. "I'm sure you're a fine woman, but you're not doing yourself any favors by resisting every request I make of you. I understand about Piccun. I'm even making concessions. If this isn't good enough for you, there's the door."

"As long as it's clean, it will do." She bit the flesh of her cheek. Pain crackled beneath the surface.

"It's clean."

"Then, I will do my best not to cause any more disruptions. You won't even know that I'm here."

It was both relieving and endlessly frustrating that he didn't say anything in response to her snide comment. She thought that he would have a biting response as he tried to put her in her place. He was silent.

Tensions were beginning to mount between them, and though it remained unsaid, Cyras couldn't help but feel that they were spiraling towards violence. Either that, or they would end up in bed together. He was the palm tree in the middle of the desert, offering shadow; she was the one spot in his life that he couldn't scrub clean, blotching his day. While Cyras was mostly used by men who didn't care for her pleasure, she knew what happens with two polar opposites. She wasn't used to the desire coursing through her.

Cyras clamped down on the inside of her cheek again. She didn't know which she wanted more: to fuck Durzo or to punch him square in the face. _Maybe both_, she thought as a smile trickled through to her face.

"What are you grinning like a fool about?" Durzo barked.

"You," Cyras answered. For once, she was honest. She was careful to omit the thoughts involved. Although, the honesty was a calculated plan. The entire conversation would go how she wanted it to go. It would be just like manipulating all the other people in her life.

"Oh, so I'm amusing to you then?"

"Yes," she responded. She placed the palms of her hands behind her and leaned on the bed. "You're all bluster and hot air. You make me laugh." She paused for a moment, gauging his reaction.

He remained quietly.

"I don't mean to be disrespectful, Durzo. Yes, I fell into your life. I caused disruptions in your life," she continued. The next words out of her mouth were hard for her. They would reveal her weakness, but she would try to appeal to him as a woman who had need of him. "It's not easy for me either. I was pulled out of my world. The one that I love is likely dead because I failed to protect him. . .because I'm here. As much as I hate to admit it, you are useful to me. I would like things to be amicable between us. Can you manage that and change your fucking attitude?"

"By the Night Angels," Durzo groaned. "I've never encountered a woman with such a grasp on cursing. You do it so fluently."

"Am I going to damage your delicate sensibilities?" Cyras bit off with a smirk. A humorous glint flash within her eyes. "Fuck, fucking, fucker, fucked, fuckee, fuckitty, fuck, fuck, fuck. It's just a fucking word, for Amés sake!"

"Wow. . ." Durzo paused for a long moment, then he steered the conversation away from vocabulary. "I take it Amés is some form of deity."

"Yes," she answered. "He's the vener of love, fertility, and life."

"Seems to be a strange god for an assassin to worship, though some wetboys here worship Nyssos. He's the god of blood, wine, and semen."

"Most of the others follow Vittoré, the vener of war, blood, and death. I suppose that would make more sense. I turned from Vittoré. By serving death, we become death, but it becomes all that awaits us in the end." She didn't add the real reason for her defection.

"Truer words were never spoken," Durzo seemed to reflect in silence for an eternal moment. It looked as if he wanted to say more, but he couldn't make the final leap to speak. She wouldn't press him. Cyras, herself, knew how guarded someone could be with their innermost thoughts.

"What about you? What god do you follow?"

"I don't."

Cyras furrowed her brow as she looked at Durzo with genuine concern. "Is that not a meaningless existence? I would like to think that my life has more meaning than that. I am more than a blade."

"It doesn't," Durzo droned. "Life has no value. When you take a life, you aren't taking anything of value. I've seen enough misery and pain, experiencing my fair share of each, to know that there is no divine being, no greater plan. Divinity wouldn't allow such things to befall its followers, unless those beings were cruel and sadistic. If that's the case, that's no god I'd want to worship and emulate."

Cyras stared starkly into Durzo's eyes, the color draining from her face. She could feel the pain in his words, see it squirming like a worm deep in his light gaze, burrowing itself deep into the center of his being. She knew at that moment that the things she had been through in her life paled in comparison to those that he had witnessed. Every indiscretion that Niccolo had performed on her, Vaene walking away from her, and even her children being taken from her: nothing compared to what he must have seen.

As she balled her hands into fists and felt the tiny pressure of her nails digging into the flesh of the palms of her hands, she knew that she felt for Blint. Besides Vaene, Vincento, and her children, Durzo was the only one that she had come to cared about. It was strange. He was a stranger to her, and he shouldn't have mattered.

"There is no god. When we die, our bodies rot in the ground. As for what happens to our consciousness, I don't know. If you want an opinion on that, ask a theologist, though you'd probably get a different answer from any one you ask. To me, it doesn't really matter."

* * *

><p>Cyras and Durzo didn't speak much more that night. His heated divulging of his beliefs left Cyras with a lot to think about. <em>Is he just a bitter old man<em>, she wondered. Well, not so much old. He seemed to be near to her age.

Durzo must have seen much, indeed, to have the outlook that he had. Even after being through all that she had, at the hands of her master, at the hands of her clients, at the hands of her lovers, after all she had done, she still had faith. She believed in fate.

Cyras had to believe in destiny. There was a reason that she was sent to Midcyru. Nothing this strange just happened by dumb, random luck. It had to do with Durzo Blint, but she couldn't understand the why of it.

As she lay in the bed with the quietness of the house cocooning her, trying to quiet her mind enough to sleep, she wanted nothing more than to be back in her own home in Olessa or more preferably, Lucci. Cyras wanted to be in a place that she understood, surrounded by people that she could relate with. It was a humorous thought. All through her life, she wanted nothing more than to be left alone. Now, she hungered for the company of the people whom she had pushed away. At least, they would understand her, and vice versa.

Blint was the only one in that world that she could relate with. In an entire world filled with those she couldn't communicate with, she had fallen into the life of the one man that could. What were the chances of that? She didn't know. Still, his beliefs frightened her.

With those thoughts surfacing and resurfacing in her mind, she drifted into a fitful sleep. She dreamed of Vaene, as she had the night before, but this time, his face was blurry, like a reflection in a pond, broken by the rings created from a cast stone. She called to him as she reached out. Their finger tips touched, brushing against one another, before he was sucked into the spinning vortex behind him.

Her heart clenched tightly, and fear enveloped her. She cried out, whimpering the name of her beloved in the darkness of the safe house. Tears sprang from her eyes, trickled down her cheeks, and wet the pillow. Cyras was alone. The bleakness of the dream and the reality converged. She had no one.


	10. Chapter 10

**Warning:** There is suicide in this chapter.

**Chapter Ten**

"No!" Cyras' cry reverberated against the walls, carrying through all the rooms of the safe house. As if a bolt of lightning had uncoiled within her and had stricken her from the inside, she jolted upright in the bed. Sleep still dulled her senses. The blanket bunched about her waist, the fabric cockling in the center.

Sapphire mist emanated from her eyes, the iris beneath the cloudy miasma shining a deep, striking blue. The mist, shifting to a milky white and glowing as if it was ablaze, curled around her brow, snaking up her forehead, and losing itself in the locks of her hair. Ivory raced down one thin strand of her hair and clashed with the blond locks beside it.

The herbs around the room wilted, curling up into small fragments of their former selves. Plants shivered, shook, and rustled to the left of the bed. Death, pungent and potent, hung heavily about the room, threatening to turn any person's stomach who would happen to venture into the acerbic aroma.

Cyras' body hummed with magick, vibrating her viscera with the punishing force of life trying to release itself and feed on everything around her. The magick sought to gobble every drop of life in that small confined space as it surged within her. As her life-force twisted within her, agony danced in rhythm with it.

On the outside, however, a calmness was etched on her face. With the exception of the blue mist, turning white, pouring from her eyes, there was no tell of the torment going on beneath her flesh. She stared into the empty space before her.

Her ears crackled from the internal pressure. The force abated. The wisps of vapor disappeared, imploding into an infinitesimal point of light above her head. Her eyes reverted to the usual green, and the specks of gold glittered deep within her bright gaze, shining with wetness from her sleep breaking dream.

Pain weaved itself through her muscles, tightening the tissue hard. Her head swam with the aftereffects of magick and the gluttonous, weakening craving of it. Since she had discovered her magickal aptitude, Cyras had only experienced episodes of losing herself completely in the early years. It was an excruciating and trying experience, and one that she didn't want to repeat.

She push the covers off of her and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, looking around at the lifeless room as her eyes adjusted. This was the latest distraction for Blint in a long line of upsets. Shame spread through her, coupling with the sharp ache caused from her sudden magickal attack. How would she explain it?

She couldn't. It was as simple as that. She and Durzo were completely different in that regard. While she liked to think she had control over her body and its magickal consumption, she knew there would always be a time that she could lose her grip on that control. As she trained, like she had done with different types of blades, she would become honed as those very blades were.

Cyras expected to see Blint in one of the corners, cloaked in shadow. Her breathing accelerated, rushing out in a gust of wind. For a brief moment, she sought for him, darting her gaze around wildly.

Perhaps, it was Niccolo that she was expecting in that moment of disorientation after waking. For so long, waking had never been peaceful for her. She never woke alone. There were always fists or heartache. It was followed by the inevitable pain, afterward. Like a bitter wind, the memories stormed out of her mind, whistling like the winter wind against the waning warmth of her heart.

Either way, she was surprised to learn that she was alone. Durzo had said nothing about leaving the night before. He hadn't dropped a hint that he would be leaving her alone. If the roles were reversed, she knew she wouldn't have left a virtual stranger in one of her homes.

_Maybe, the one in the Eastern Kingdoms,_ she mused,_ but not the one in Lucci or Olessa. _It was quite possible that he hadn't left her alone. _He had to be in one of the other rooms,_ she thought, trying to comfort herself.

As she gazed around, she stood, feeling like she did not have control over her own body. There were only a few times that she felt meek, beaten down, and weak. It usually had to do with those times that Niccolo had left her, broken, near death.

She searched, and she came to the stark realization that she was alone. Morose melted into her, dirtying the one small bright spot that remained on her soul. It burrowed deeply within her, refusing to release her heart from its melancholy tendrils. Cyras sighed, pushing the air out of her lungs with enough force to cause her chest to throb.

Durzo had left her because of their conversation the night before. She knew that had to be the reason. Robbing herself of a potential ally and friend, she had pushed another man away. The pain twisted bitterly into her heart, withering it within her, and rapidly raced to other areas of her body.

Vaene had damaged her defenses, and in response, she had raised them redoubled. Instead of defending herself, Cyras had done the only thing that she knew how. She had gone on the offensive, and it had resulted in something she didn't want.

She was doomed to be alone. It was a fate that she couldn't avoid, an opponent that she couldn't kill. Her destiny weighed on her. Cyras was an assassin, one forever sentenced to walk in the shadows, a solitary creature, like her namesake; a Tigress couldn't change her stripes.

Passing a mirror, she stopped, leaning back to gaze at the villain within. She hated her beauty: the perfect symmetry of her face; her full lips; her straight, blonde hair; and her smoky, expressive eyes. Niccolo was the first to see the diamond amongst the filth of Glyndon's streets. His clients were the second to notice it. How many of them had paid the paltry fee in sovereigns to ride the the Duke's Glorendine whore? Vincento had complimented her on it, allowing her to take advantage of him. When she couldn't whore anymore, the Shade put her out to pasture. Finally, Vaene noticed it and managed to knock all of her walls down.

Yes, Cyras despised her flawless face and the hidden scars, both physical and emotional, brought on by it. Her attractiveness was the cause of all the troubles in her life. Had she been ugly, she would likely be dead, but death was a welcome fate in comparison to the pain she had been through, what she continued to suffer through.

Wetness trickled onto her cheek, sparkling in a luminescent line. She lifted her hand and touched her face. Tears. It was another vulnerability that Vaene had exposed, forcing her to experience it.

In a fit of rage, she raised a fist, smashing it into the accursed, pretty face that smirked back at her. The ire stoked inside of her, billowing like the furnace of a forge. She clenched her teeth together, losing control over herself.

Shards tumbled, sparkling in the morning light, tinkling on the floor like razor shards of sunlight. She watched the jagged pieces of glass as they came to rest on the wooden floor. Catching her eyes to one of them, she stared at her wild eyed reflection. Her hair, radiating, golden strands with a small, minuscule piece of white, dropped flat against the sides of her neck.

Cyras knew what she had to do. As she reached down, she grasped one of the fragments. It was a small piece, enough to end her suffering, enough to escape Niccolo and his torment forever. She wouldn't have to worry about being alone ever again.

After placing the glass against her flesh, she gazed at the blue vein bulging against the surface of her wrist, but she did not see it. Her thoughts consumed her. The Death-Plane would become her home. She would probably suffer alongside all those that made her suffer. To see that would be enough. It was that thought that made her decision for her. When the suffering finally ended, there would be nothing. No pain. No sorrow. No copious love. It was what she wanted.

Her vision blurred. More tears. She laughed to herself, looking at the piece of glass in her hand, sanguine wetness clinging to one edge. The life throbbed out of her other arm, spiraling down the side of her elbow.

An immense power rolled inside of her, roiling within the bowels of her psyche. A heavy fog enveloped her, dulling her thoughts to anything else but the fluid gushing out of her. For a brief moment, it appeared that the blood moved sideways on her arm, leaving her gaze transfixed on her limb.

Laying down onto her back, she laughed again. She didn't even remember cutting herself; she had done it so fast. A part of her, the professional inside, admired such quickness. It was what made her the best assassin in Arathea. After all, she was always skilled with a blade, almost any blade. She stared up at the ceiling, and it seemed to pull away from her, as if it was sucked into an infinitesimal point.

For a brief moment, she thought of Vaene. She didn't have any illusions that she would be joining him on the Ven-Plane. Her work had damned her soul to the Death-plane. Cyras knew what lay in store for her, if she could even go there from where she was. It didn't matter anymore. She lost her grip on consciousness, and she surrendered to the all encompassing darkness.

* * *

><p>Cyras awoke in a hazy blackness, thick, dark eyelashes fluttering against the top of her pale cheeks. As if she was viewing the world through a thick, gauzy material, it blurred before her. But it wasn't the world – Arathea or Midcyru – that she was seeing. The terrain was bleak, featureless. The walls, erected like spines around her, quivered, trembling with anguish and fear, and they reached with invisible talons to merge with her.<p>

She took a step forward, and the ground, itself, quaked in her wake. Her foot-steps didn't ring out on the inky flooring. The ground absorbed any sound. Silence permeated her body, worming inside like a parasite. Cyras looked down at her body as a heavy heat assaulted her and seared her in its intensity.

To her dismay, she was featureless, also. A dense mist swirled around her body, barring sight of any distinguishing characteristics. The blue vapor curled around her upper and lower torso, darting to the left and the right. As it scurried above her head, it transformed into a translucent, ivory fog. White folded into itself, spiraling into the mass of sapphire. Tinges of sanguine bled into the pale smoke.

_At least,_ she thought,_ I'm alone, _until she heard the voices. Fear filtered inside of her, blotting out the curiosity of the place. Inside, terror parted the mist, making more vapors expel faster than she thought was possible.

At first, they came as a cacophony of cries and screams, scores of voices all calling out in agony for their respective torments to come to an end. With each piercing roar, the entire plane shook in response. If her shape was not weightless, she would have lost her footing. She would have stumbled to the ground and become part of the harrowing landscape.

She knew the legends of the Death-plane, the final stop for those that had damned themselves. Those voices were the thieves, murderers, and whores of her world, slowly dissolving in the muck that made up the death-plane. Even some of the tragic souls were probably sent there, to receive their fate, damned by their own hand.

However, she was not prepared for how bleak it actually was. The only emotions that she could feel in her misty form were anger, hatred, regret, and sorrow. They ate at her, consuming in their ever present, volatile state.

The din faded, and two voices took shape in her mind as if they were speaking directly into her soul. The tones intertwined, combining into a singular voice before breaking apart again. Inside of her head, it echoed, coming together and breaking apart, and left faint traces of the words said.

As she tilted her head, the vapors danced across the silhouette of her face. Cyras fought the urge to meld into the surroundings with each step. She didn't need to know who was talking to her. The terror creeping up her spine was enough.

"Clara Denarian," the old ones spoke, their voices joining in her head, reverberating against the caverns of her mind. They had used the name that she had wanted to forget, the one she was born with.

_No,_ she thought to herself. Clara Denarian, Glorendine street rat, did not exist. Born of a whore and a Glorendine war chief, Cyras had long ago come to terms with that girl's death. Clara represented everything good and loving in the assassin. She was hope incarnate. With one violent thrust of Niccolo's hips, he murdered the poor, frightened girl, leaving the Black Tigress in her place.

"You stand before us for the crimes that you have visited upon the denizens of the Arathean plane." The voices continued to resonate. They sounded like they were coming from all directions, blasting into the innermost sanctums of her soul, piercing in their strength.

As she looked for the source of the voices, she made a horrifying discovery. The spine-like walls grew to an immeasurable height. At the tallest point, they converged with a curved section of the wall running vertically, resembling ribs. Bits of inky fabric blew like rotting, fleshy banners welcoming home war torn soldiers.

The Death-plane was not just a plane of existence. Yes, it stretched out, seemingly going onward farther than she could see or, as it was in that form, sense, but there was something strange about it.

The floor writhed, rising like cresting waves across the wisps of her feet. It threatened to pull her down, merging her with the others. The Death-plane _was _the Old Ones. They absorbed the lives of the cursed.

"Murder, betrayal, lust. All of those pale in comparison to your final crime, however. The veneri gave you life, and you chose to end that life willingly. It is an insult to all life to do such a thing."

Her mind went through a mental check-list of all that was forced upon her. Once Vincento had asked her what was worse than the rape that Niccolo and his clients visited upon her. Without hesitation, she focused on the betrayal that the one person she looked up to as a father had inflicted upon her.

Anything was better than spending another moment with her master. She looked forward to the sweet oblivion that awaited her, imagining the torments of her fellows, before becoming part of these beings, forever.

Like spouting water, the black liquid cascaded over her legs and her hips. It seared into the invisible mass in the center of her whirling being of shadows and light.

"What have you to say in your defense before you are cast into the Death plane for your eternal punishment?"

_So, this wasn't the death-plane,_ she thought. It was more or less like the entrance into a city where the peasants crowded together in a line; well, without the engulfing material on her body. Even as eternity opened before her, she found the thought humorous.

Cyras tilted her head, angling her jaw. A vaporous trail of sapphire, ivory, and crimson wafted off of her indiscernible face and disappeared into the blackened space beyond.

There was nothing to defend. As she looked down at the shape of her arm, she noticed the jagged, ruby line crossing her arm. Even in this place, this limbo, her body refused to give up. She was ready to die, but something kept her tethered to the mortal world. While she could not see her body, she could feel a connection, a gateway, to Midcyru.

"I have nothing to say in my defense. My life was misery. It is only fitting that my death is as well," Cyras acquiesced, resigned to her fate. Morose sprang over her as she thought of all she would not see again. Vaene Arturis. Her children. Midcyru. Durzo Blint. The dress that Piccun crafted. "I do have one question, though, Great Ones."

"Ask!" It seemed as if a thousand voices joined in on the demand. Pressure built inside of her body with the thundering command. For a moment, she thought she was going to be torn apart.

"Why was I sent to Midcyru? How did it happen?"

"Ah, that is two questions, but there is no harm in answering them," the dancing, echoing voices sounded. "A vener sent you there, using the ven contained in a natural font to do it. We can not say which vener is responsible, for we can not see into the Ven plane, though we can see the residue left in Arathea. If we discover who is behind it, rest assured, they will join you here."

She noticed that they did not answer her first question. Cyras wanted to know why she was transported into the world and what the vener who was responsible wished for her to do there. It was part of her curious nature.

The black liquid moved up her chest now, covering one of her arms in its smothering density, though it was nearly wightless. The gelatinous material quivered with excitement as her arm and shoulders bent inward, mist popping with scorching heat.

A tug, pulling gently, slid across her left shoulder. It was such an unusual experience that her body, or what seemed to be her body, drifted backward. She went with it, expecting to be led to the place where she would suffer for the rest of time until she became part of the landscape.

"You didn't answered my first question!" she uttered urgently. The anxiety built inside of her as the tug became more insistent, curiously. Something told her to fight the feeling, to try to get the information from these beings while she had the chance. Something told her that she didn't have much time!

"You were there because-"

Her eyes fluttered open. The hazy world was gone. She lay on the bed, sanguine wetness clinging to the bedclothes. Cyras coughed violently, the spittle running out of her mouth and down the side of her cheek. Her lungs burned, expanding painfully with a violent burst of air.

Bent over her was a face she thought she would never see again, a face she wasn't sure she wanted to see again. Despite trying to hide it, concern filled his light eyes. Concern that he was showing a complete stranger that he couldn't even understand. It was Durzo's apprentice, though his name escaped her at that instant.

_Either he saved me,_ she thought, _or this is my punishment. _

The look in his eyes, the concern for a simple stranger, ate at her conscious. He reminded her of her apprentice, – her niece and the daughter of Vincento – Aria. The girl had the same wide eyed concern for Cyras after Niccolo had visited her as this boy did now.

Cyras hated the expression. It made her feel like a feeble old woman, not the powerful, intriguing person that she had worked hard shaping herself into. That expression, that one damn stare, had the power of transporting her back to the time where she couldn't care for herself. It took her back to the time when she was a desperate child eager to help a friend.

As she narrowed her eyes and as a reflex reaction, she reached out and slapped at the boy's face. Fury lifted inside of her, coloring her body in a sheen of searing ire. All she wanted was to see that look on his face vanish.

Kylar leaned backward, adeptly dodging her strike. She was surprised by the fact that her hand did not make contact, nor did the soothing balm filter over her like she was expecting. Such a reaction could only be honed to such a degree through training.

_How dare he,_ her mind roared in protest. After the life that she had led and the tortures that she had endured, Cyras wanted the one thing that had been denied to her since the Shade had taken her as one of his apprentices. She wanted to put down her blades; she wanted the promise of peace that her master had teased her with so long ago.

She looked at her arm, thick rolls of linen wrapped around her wrist, coiling around her like a python. Crimson peaked through the layers, blossoming to the surface. The bleeding had long since stopped.

Even in a different plane and on the verge of death, Cyras couldn't die. It was denied to her because of this helpful shit. She bit down on her cheek, gnawing at the inside flesh.

As hot and blinding as the anger was, sorrow dulled its edges. She knew she wasn't in her right mind, and she just wanted out of existence. Cyras was tired.

"Why did you do that?!" she growled, the anger and pain hardening her voice, as she forgot he couldn't understand her. It didn't matter to her if he could or not. She wanted to be heard. Wanting her ache for her own world and the loss of her love to halt, she despised the boy's interference and, obvious chivalrous tendencies.

"Fo'shi wana holo," he grumbled in complete gibberish.

The agony from the overuse of her magickal aptitude before this boy's intervention combined with the heartache. Her body felt drained as she fought the tiredness attempting to force her eyelids close.

Judging by the sardonic tone, matched by the look on his face, his words weren't anything positive.

She relaxed and pushed away the effeteness and mistrust. Cyras was not going to get anywhere with thinking that Durzo sent his apprentice to finish something that she couldn't or that he thought she was his rival and he came on his own. Her thoughts raced with the possibilities and imagined foes that lurked around her.

_Cyras,_ she demanded. _Stop it. _Gazing at the bandages of her arm, she knew that was not the case. She was in denial, and dubiety was the death of her kind. Her arm was cleaned and bandaged. If he wanted her to die, he wouldn't have saved her. It was as simple as that.

The herbs and flowers around the room remained wilted. Their remains persisted as a reminder of the onset of the burst of magick from earlier. Like them, her soul was shriveled and blackened, a phantom of what once was. The only difference was that she couldn't even get dying right.

There were reasons behind her refusal to die. If a vener had sent her there as the Old Ones proclaimed, it had tied her to the lands. She had died and had transcended to the area just before the Death-plane, Limbo.

In all the legends of the planes of existence, once you ventured to one, there would be no returning. The odds are that this apprentice could have saved her were slim to none. The vener who sent her here still had plans for her in Midcyru. They had the power to rip her from the death-plane.

Fear swallowed her, and she shivered. She hated to show any kind of powerlessness before anyone. It was one of those things that she couldn't get past. Her mistrust consumed her, stretching her mind to its tearing point like a worn piece of fabric.

A slow realization overcame her. There was no one else in the safe house. She would be dead if this boy hadn't come in. Like a mind numbing fog, disappointment blanketed her body. Druzo was gone. Cyras was left alone in the house, expecting to remain as minimal of a distraction as possible. A normal person would have acknowledged such an act, basking in the acceptance of someone like Blint, but she was far from normal.

"Where is Master Blint?" she asked. She knew that he couldn't understand her. The one that she needed and could understand was absent from her life at that moment. Cyras didn't know if he planned to return.

The boy furrowed his dark eyebrows, struggling to grasp what she was saying.

"Durzo?" She looked around and added a shrug as she hoped that he would get her meaning. In Arathea, Cyras had been sent to places where she couldn't understand the language. This was like that. At least, she tried to think it was like that.

In truth, with no one understanding a word that she said, she was handicapped, stunted like a dwarf in the Olessan Army.

He muttered something and shrugged.

_Shit,_ she thought. _The bastard's still gone._ She would have some words for him when he returned, that much was certain.

* * *

><p>Cyras stared at the door, whiling away hours in silent inaction. She grew ever more furious as time passed inexorably. The fury waxed and crested like waves in the ocean, tumbling over into her core, creating a riptide that threatened to pull her even deeper into ire.<p>

She bit the inside of her mouth for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. Cyras didn't understand why she was so angry with Durzo. It was not like he owed any sort of allegiance to her. She was not his wife, the little woman who commented on everything he did. Because she was transported there mere days before, he was a complete stranger to her.

Still, fear slammed into her heart. The panicked emotion encompassed all of her thoughts, reminding her in stark detail of a betrayal. It wasn't Blint's. Durzo hadn't betrayed her. After all, she had just met him. There was still time for that, however. Everyone in her life, whether they cared for her or not, seemed to violate her trust.

Her lungs filled with sullenness. Painful air became trapped inside of them. It hurt her to breath.

While it was Durzo's leaving that triggered the grievous memory, it was another she truly was angry with. The walls threatened to change, becoming solid walls of ivory marble with elaborate tapestries. She closed her eyes and fought the familiar thoughts.

This was completely different. Cyras tried to remember that she was in Midcyru, far away from the Olessan Empire, far away from the only one who had the ability to tear her world asunder. Although she tried to end her life, she was safe from _him_.

Finally, as the sunlight just began streaming through the small spaces in the shuttered windows, providing a brilliant spectrum of fractured light, motes of dust dancing in the beams, the door opened. The blinding light of the dawn made him look like a shadow given life.

As she snapped her eyes opened, she glared towards the door. Cyras blinked, trying to focus on his details. Her eyes couldn't adjust to the change in light quickly enough.

The silhouette turned, closing the door, and Durzo materialized in its place in stunning focus.

Relief flooded through her as she stared like a spoiled child, boring holes into his taut back, the mottled grays stretching across it. She was glad that he was safe, and the appeasement of just seeing him threatened her sanity. Stoking the flames of anger more was the fact that it was not him that she wanted to see return through the door. Cyras wanted him to be her king; she yearned for Vaene to come and rescue her like the damsels that the guild master, Seneca, in Glyndon would often tell her of during Niccolo and her travels there so the Shade could collect his tribute in Glorendt. _There is no reality in fairy tales, Cyras._

He locked, unlocked, and locked each of the three bolts on the door. The sounds echoed through the room, urging her to join him. She fought the need to lock the locks four extra times.

"Where the fuck have you been?" Cyras blurted, her annoyance cresting by his ignorance of her. Once before, a man had ignored her, resisting her pleas, and went to see his mistress. She didn't care for Durzo in that way, but his callous reaction to her caused her heart to clench a bit tighter. The air in her throat refused to go down, searing pressure emitted from her chest as it did.

The fury twisted more, and the blank expression on her face hid the wrath lurking beneath her calm facade. She knew that he had to be aware of her, and he had likely seen her the moment he had opened the door. Whatever Blint was playing at was intentional.

"Working," he droned in response. "I wasn't aware that I had to tell you everything I plan on doing beforehand."

"You don't," Cyras said noncommittally.

Guilt flashed through her, igniting the potent fumes of her indignation. It wasn't his fault that his absence brought on the heady memory of Vaene's own betrayal. Agony etched plainly on her face, bringing forth the anxiety of that specific period in time.

"I just...I could have used someone to talk to." The words dragged forth from her lips like peasants fleeing for their lives from an invading country's coup. "Someone that understands me."

He looked more closely at her. His blue eyes narrowed, glittering in the early light of day, at her bandaged wrist and arm.

Shame laced itself through her body, weaving into her heart like fat through a slab of marbled steak.

It was not the first time that she had hurt herself, adding more wounds to her collection of rended flesh. As she watched the blood rise to the surface of her arm when she sliced herself, she felt alive. The pain would wash away.

"That's not an answer, kid," he muttered, almost a whisper, as he motioned to her arm. Lines cut into his forehead as his brow furrowed.

"What the fuck do you know?" Cyras felt the hot fury swell within her, a molten need, searing all thought, uncontrollable, unrestrained.

A challenge sparkled deep within her eyes, bathing her in its bitter encompassing depths. _By everything that the Veneri hold dear,_ she thought, _how does he know what is the answer and what isn't? _He couldn't begin to understand the pain that Niccolo and the others had put her through. No one could.

"You don't know my life!" Cyras felt like a disobedient child, questioning her master's beliefs for the very first time. She dropped her head and tried to hide the sneer pulling at her lips. "You know my words, but even you don't understand me. No one does, nor will they ever."

"I know more than you think. Just because I lack the scars, doesn't mean I've never experienced pain. Magic can remove the physical evidence, but the mental scars remain. The memory of a gaping abdominal wound and the pain associated with it won't be removed. It doesn't help that the healing hurts like a bitch." He walked over to the bed.

What he was saying made sense. She knew that deep inside of her. Everyone had scars:emotional, mental, and physical. The worst of it was that Cyras had all three. It was for that sole reason that she had developed her eccentric personality; it protected her.

"I won't pretend to know what you're going through right now, Cyras," Durzo said as he sat down next to her. He seemed to become gentler, more tender with his tone.

Cyras raised her head again as the straw mattress bowed under his weight. She felt a strange pull in her heart as her gaze met his. Durzo was showing genuine concern, and it was unusual to her. The only two in her life that had shown that were Vincento and Vaene, and she had slept with both of them.

"The truth is, I don't have a clue what you're experiencing. I don't know how to solve the problem of getting you home just yet, but I have an idea to at least make things a little more bearable."

"What would that be?" _As if I don't know,_ she added internally. It was something that every man wanted from her. Durzo just had more tact stating it than some of the others. Resentment built inside of her, cutting deep into the strange emotion blossoming in her chest.

"I'm going to have Kylar teach you how to speak our language."

She gaped at him, staring with widened eyes. A part of her was amazed at the suggestion and the concessions that this man was making for her. Another part of her became alerted to them. Warning bells echoed through her body. Cyras knew she was getting too close. Something was driving her towards him, and she had no power to stop it.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

Cyras tended her plants in the small area that Durzo had allowed her to use in the herb room of the safe house that she was occupying. Wisps of blue mist rose from the darkened patch of earth before her. The ends of the miasma curled upwards, folded into itself, dove downward, and plunged into the soil. Like a nurturing mother, she glided her hand through the vapor, caressing the tendrils with her fingertips, and parted them.

It was a hard won battle getting Master Blint to give her this small concession. She had begged and, then, demanded this small part of the house. Cyras knew that demanding anything wasn't the way to get what she wanted with Blint, but she also knew that he wasn't as cold as he put himself forth to be. As an assassin, she had become adapt at reading others.

The mist wrapped around her hand, slithering and contorting like a serpent. Heat of the life energy released from the seeds and tiny sprouts of plants warmed her flesh like the soothing rays of sunlight. She smiled.

_Yes,_ she thought. _It had been a hard won battle for me and Blint. _Cyras was pleased with herself for not backing down in her had persuaded him, telling him that she wanted a small part of Arathea, that she wouldn't venture outside the safe house, and that she would listen to him.

Raising her head, she glanced to her left and stared at the lithe silhouette behind the rice-paper wall. The shadow elongated, flickering in the candle illuminating the next room. Listening to him did not complicate her situation. The last time she had argued with Durzo, he had left her alone without so much as a word before leaving.

For reasons she wasn't fully ready to admit, she liked having the elder wetboy around. Like with her beloved in Arathea, she knew that arguing with Durzo was not the way to a peaceful cohabitation. He was a strong, stubborn man.

It had been two weeks since the wetboy had suggested his apprentice teach her their language, helping bring down the invisible barrier between her and the world outside the quaint house. At first, she didn't like the fact that Durzo had relegated the task of teaching her the language to Kylar, but she begrudgingly went along with it so as not to cause any more conflict. If anything, she was true to her promise. She would not make trouble for Blint, but it did not mean that she had to like what he was doing or asking of her.

Like a mystical cat, the hazy fog rose to meet her palm as she swept her hand through it. The mist swayed back and forth, dancing like nobles at a ball, and tumbled beneath her and aloft.

A calmness entered her, eclipsing the raging emotions that threatened to consume her weeks ago. Amid Niccolo's abuse and Cyras' deception to the one man that she loved, tending the various herbs and poisons was the only time that she had serenity.

Her gaze flickered to the other vials lining the worn oak table. Two thick, bulbous glass tubes, both capped with a wooden cork, lay beside the budding plants. One was filled with the milky Death Viper venom.

The other was filled with a clear fluid. While many assassins were dealers in death, Cyras believed that life and death were two different sides of the same coin. For one who was skilled in delivering demise, she was adept at delivering salvation, as well.

Most didn't know the secret. A small spoonful of the liquid would draw out poisons, nullifying any toxin in the body. It was a wondrous event to experience as the fluid made the poison draw out from every part of the flesh. The poison would well up and slide off the skin, clinging to hair on the various parts of the body like sweat.

Finally, there was another vessel. It was a slender, long vial, the glass shimmering in the candle-light. Silvery liquid metal coated the inside, giving the crystal a sheen. Vener's Tears were more important to her than any of her poisons and venom. Cyras didn't have the courage to tell anyone why.

She curled her fingers and felt her skin crinkle in her palm. The life-force hummed against her flesh, searing with invisible energy.

As she moved, the silk fabric molded to her form. Piccun's craftsmanship was as high quality as the noble tailors of the Olessan Empire.

"I'm surprised that he let you do that," Kylar said behind her.

He may have thought that he was sneaking up on her, but Cyras was aware of his presence from the moment that he stepped into the room. Niccolo's abuse honed her senses, and she knew that agony waited around every corner in Arathea. Although there were almost no threats in the safe house, some habits were hard to break.

_Some I don't prefer to break. _She was expecting him anyway; she hadn't had her lesson that day yet. Durzo insisted that they get started at once, and Kylar was not the type of person who would ignore a command from his master.

At first, it was slow going. Cyras would learn a few words a day, progressing like a child starting out. Later, she could carry on a rudimentary conversation with Kylar and to a lesser extent with Blint. She would feel like a toddler sometimes when she couldn't form her ideas into coherent sentences.

_Lessons,_ she laughed at herself. She felt like an apprentice again, being taught by someone who was likely barely more than half her age and nothing like her master, The Shade. Kylar wasn't the worst company in the world, even if they could barely understand each other and he was a little green in dealing with members of the opposite sex.

"I can be very. . ." she responded, pausing as she tried to find the right term.

Cyras thought that she was coming along nicely in learning their common, but Durzo seemed to be less than optimistic about her progress. At dinner, he would converse with her entirely in his language.

Often, Durzo spoke words just a bit too fast for her to decipher the ones that she didn't know. She would become frustrated and ask him to slow down. He would tell her that she needed to not be stupid, and she would suggest that he take over her lessons. That was the extent of that conversation every time.

"What is the wourd, Kylar?"

"Word. It's pronounced 'word'."

"Word?"

"Good. That's better."

Along with the expected mispronunciations, her thick, purring accent made it difficult to speak words that had an R in them. Her tongue would roll, and the word expelled like thick sludge from her mouth.

"What isthe _word_, Kylar?" she asked again as she tried to think of the right term.

"Think it through," Kylar instructed.

_Bastard. _He knew the word that she was searching for. She could tell it by the look on his face; he wasn't going to tell her, however. Kylar insisted on her finding the words on her own. It was an excruciating process, but it had sped her progress along quickly.

Cyras was quiet for a moment as she searched through the corridors of her mind. She raised her arms and stroke the supple flesh of her shoulders. The specks of gold in her eyes, radiating from the shades of the gown, sparkled and danced like fire from the hottest flames.

"Persuasive?" she said in a tone that lacked in confidence. It was more question than statement. Doubt eroded her self assurance.

"That makes sense," he replied with a nod. His dark hair fluttered with the gesture. "Though it is an understatement. I should think it would take quite a lot to persuade Master Blint."

She felt the rush of warmth when he mentioned Blint's name. A thick miasma clouded the rooms of her mind, confusing her for a brief moment. Cyras felt as if she wasn't in control of her emotions once more. It was an unusual occurrence and only seemed to happen around Durzo or when someone mentioned it.

"I have my ways," Cyras purred with a sardonic grin. She pondered the rush of energy she felt for Durzo or seeing him. Cyras knew about glamor magick and the ability to effect one's mind.

In Arathea, the use was outlawed. In ancient kingdoms, the kings would use those who were proficient in that typical magick as spies. Men would tumble into bed and tongues would become loosened with a simple thought. Women and men sought to be more powerful, and kings and queens grew more envious.

Could such magick, or as Durzo and Kylar called it Talent, exist in that world? More importantly, could Blint be a practitioner of such a thing? She could not sense the magickal aptitude in him as he couldn't in her. Cyras hated to be blinded by such a handicap.

"What is it that you['re growing? I've never seen those plants before, and Master Blint has shown me many of the plants used for poisons in Midcyru."

"They aren't from Midcyru," she explained. She passed her hand through the mist again as she talked to Kylar over her shoulder. "They are from Arathea. I'm not sure why they came with me, but I think it has to dou with the life energy, the ven, inside of them."

"_Do_, Cyras. I think it has to _do_ with the life energy inside of them."

"Do," she repeated. "These are magickal plants. They are obviously rare in this world, but they are rare in mine, as well. Most are illegal, and more than a few are from the Veneran Wilderness north of the Olessan Empire. Dragons inhabit that jungle, making them almost impossible to gather."

"Magical plants?" Kylar questioned, becoming interested in the topic. It was a strange transformation in the conversation. She recognized the hunger in his voice. Aria, her own apprentice and niece, seeped the same curiosity when she came across something that she didn't know. It would only be natural for this young man to do the same.

As for Kylar, he was the teacher, but he was becoming an inquisitive student, eager for the knowledge that she held on the plants. Cyras became the teacher again, voracious in her thoughts.

"This is Maiden's Tear," Cyras answered pointing at the largest of the seedlings. She picked up the vial of clear fluid. The liquid sloshed in the vessel, splashing against the sides. Reaching out, she handed the glass to Kylar. "It's a . . .curative."

Kylar uncorked it and stared into its contents. Maiden's Tear offered no smell. Because of its magickal properties, it was clear and held no aroma.

"It is the strongest curative in Arathea, able to counteract the effects of a variety of poisons. In fact, it is the only thing known that can counteract the effects of Death Viper venom. All assassins have some, unless they want to be a dead assassin."

"What's the small one on the end, the one with the blue mist around it?" He handed the vial back to her.

"Blue Mist?" She placed the vial back on the stand and turned to face him. Cyras held her hands out, palms up, in confusion. "I do not understand these words."

Frustration reminded her of her disadvantage. Briefly, she wondered if she would ever be proficient in their language. She could carry on conversations, and, for many, that would have been enough. Still, Cyras wanted more. She wanted to be fluent.

"That one." Kylar pointed.

"Ah, that one is my favorite," she replied with a smile once she had realized what he was referring to. The grin illuminated her features, brightening her complexion like sun rays beaming down upon her. "That's Isere, literally Essence of the Veneri."

"Veneri?"

"Uh, I believe you call them gods, but I don't think they are the same thing." Cyras knew that everyone would say that. Many believed that their gods actually existed and they were not some invisible entity with omnipotent abilities.

"What is Isere used for? It looks so strange."

"It is..." she gestured, searching for the correct word. The blue miasma wrapped around her hand, sliding along her palm, and dove into the soil. "smoked?" Her tone lacked the confidence that she exuded in her movements.

Kylar nodded. His hair fell, covering part of his bright eyes.

"It is smoked. There is usually a ritual to it. We commune with the veneri, and we are given their sight and abilities for a time. It is very spiritual."

* * *

><p>The spiritual aspect of killing was a part of everything Cyras did. An assassin gave up everything that she knew in the same way that the priestesses of their chosen deity did. They became the vessel of vengeance for Vittoré.<p>

_There was always an exception._ Cyras walked her own path. She turned her back to her vener, refusing to kill in his name. The only time that her blade would quench its thirst would be for justice in the name of Amés.

Folding her legs beneath her, she sat with her back straight. The hem of the gown hiked up, folded in, and brushed against her flesh.

"Amés," she murmured as she tilted her head and stared at the only trinket in the entire realm of Midcyru that connected her to her new patron vener.

The sword was different from the others around it. Its edge straighter than the others, sharper; the design stolen from those who came before the Olessans, the craftsmen and the ancient Olessans' oppressors of the Great Kingdom. Like a serpent dangling from a branch, a crimson ribbon, the symbol of the kingdom's troubled past, was tied around the cross guard. Sanguine fabric kissed the weapon's blade below it.

A sharp poke pierced her side. It felt no sharper than a bee sting.

For a brief moment, fear enveloped her. She was new to that world, still. Illness could have taken root within her, twisting her insides and murdering her.

That was replaced with the knowledge that the safe house was as clean as any of hers in Olessa. She had made sure that there would be no outside vermin in the home.

_Besides Blint_, she quipped. Finding the humor in her own words, she smiled. She didn't understand the relationship with the strange man. He seemed like her in more ways than she was willing to admit. Both were prideful and masters of their craft.

"Amés," she repeated. Lowering her arm, she rested her hands on the hilt of one of the large daggers laying in her lap. The wavy, curved blade felt familiar to her, reminding her of the Glorendine blades of her own. "Although I offer no blood or semen for your tribute-"

The pressure in her side expanded as if a spider had bitten deep into the flesh there. A breath of air crossed her face. It held a distinct, pungent, musky odor to it.

Narrowing her eyes, she tilted her upper body to the left. Yes, the scent was unmistakable. She knew exactly what it was.

The silence in the room was palatable. A woman and a man arguing outside on the street could be heard, muffled by the paper thin walls.

"Don't you know that you never spy on a lady, Blint?" she asked in his own language.

Cyras thought that she was progressing nicely in her grasp of the Cenarian language. Her vocabulary was growing stronger each day, and she was beginning to be able to discern unknown words on her own when she heard them. Kylar seemed optimistic that there wasn't much more that he could teach her. She was nearing independence, a prospect that was very comforting to her.

Looking into space on the left side of her body, she saw nothing there. She had prided herself in her abilities of stealth and observation. In Arathea, people feared her ability to slip in and out of their homes undetected. It was the art of assassination that she was teaching her apprentices.

Here, things were different. From her observances of Kylar and Durzo's training, wetboys could dampen their body. If they landed roughly, the sound could be lost. They didn't need to watch where they landed or be conscientiously aware of their surroundings. Or, at least, Blint made it look easy.

"If I wanted to kill you now," Durzo grumbled into her ear as he materialized on her right side, "I could have." He gripped a shiv in his hand, pressing the point into her side through the thin fabric of the gown that Piccun crafted for her. "You need to be more aware of your surroundings."

He was right. She had been lost in memories. An assassin haunted by the desire to return home was a dead assassin. Cyras considered herself better than that.

Still, instead of frowning, she grinned at the tall, lanky man. Her eyes trailed from his pale blue eyes down his body, slowly, making him look in the process.

A dagger, the same kris that sat in her lap moments ago, was touching the meat of his arm.

"Hmm. Sure, I would be dead, but you failed to realize something," she murmured. She bent forward. Her face inches from his own. She could smell the garlic on his breath. Their gazes clashed for a moment, but there wasn't malice in either. "You would be, too."

A smile flitted past his lips. It was brief, but she still witnessed it. At least, in times such as this, the man had a sense of humor.

"I would have had that tipped so lightly with poison that you wouldn't even notice. You would begin to sweat, get dizzy, and vomit. Considering your weight, size, and the kind of poison, I would say that you would have ten minutes to live."

He laughed. Reaching up, he grasped the hilt of the dagger and took it from her. Durzo stood up.

"How long have you been there?"

"Whatthehelldidyoudotomywall?" Durzo cried, breaking their moment in a flurry of words that she couldn't even begin to decipher. The words ran together, falling over each other in rapid succession. As if he had thrust forward with the dagger, the angry tone pierced into her sharply.

She looked at him like a prey caught by a predator for a moment before matching his ireful glare with her own.

Confusion ate at her heart, coiling fear deep within her. She hated when a person became loud and angry. It reminded her of Niccolo, and she would revert to the little girl that was terrified of him.

While Durzo had never shown the aggression to hurt her like her master had, she still shrank away from his voice. She hated that anyone could have that effect upon her.

"You're speaking too quickly, Durzo," she growled. "I didn't understand a fucking word of that."

"I thought Kylar was teaching you the language."

"He is."

"Are you stupid, darlin?" he drawled, biting the word darling off quickly. The way he said it made it sound strikingly like an insult. She hated when he called her that. It was condescending, and her wrath for him grew. "What's taking so long? You're not progressing anywhere near quickly enough."

There was one thing that she couldn't allow him to indulge in. Cyras was intelligent. She was going to be the guild master of the Olessan Assassins, returning them to their former honor and glory, and she couldn't do that by playing the part of the fool.

"Then, why don't you teach me if you're unhappy with the results? Asshole," she sneered. She called upon all her bravado. Her gaze bore into his. Cyras wouldn't wilt before him; she didn't have it in her to kowtow to him.

She wondered why they were still at each other's throats. Cyras looked downward briefly; her gaze, wavering. _What did I do to make him hate me so?_ It was not like she choose to be parted from her beloved and fall into his life, literally.

"I see he's taught you your favorite words."

"No, I figured those out on my own."

Durzo pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. She braced herself for a biting retort that never came.

Cyras smirked. Her eyelashes fluttering against her cheek as she looked upon him. She loved to frustrate Durzo, or any man for that matter. It was the small amount of control that Niccolo had not ripped away from her.

"Are you going to explain what you did to my wall?" He was intentionally speaking slowly, mightily containing his aggravation. If she was in an appreciative mood, she would note the ability that he could hide his disappointment was impressive. To admit that, she would have to break down the hastily made defenses that she placed around the holes made from Vaene's siege upon her heart.

Lifting her head, pieces of her hair curled around her full cheeks. Her bright stare tried to find the imperfection that his keen eye caught. There was none that she could discern.

The simple ninety degree angle as a sword and daggers' sheath met provided a symmetry that only the beauty of nature could provide. In her estate at Lucci, she had tried to mimic the straight lines, but she was not a crafter of buildings. Cyras was a killer, an assassin.

To Cyras, assassination was an art form. Her targets were the paint, her clientele were the artists, and she was her patron's brush. The Black Tigress never disappointed.

Smiling, she had to admit that she liked that particular metaphor. It made the business of murder beautiful. Vincento would have laughed at her. Assassination was anything but beautiful. There was nothing beautiful in the slicing of someone's throat in the pale moonlight.

_With the exception of watching their blood glisten and fill the perfect cracks that nature provided for her servant._ That was poetic in its own right. Guilt flushed through her as she was reminded about the type of person who would have found something like that exquisite. Did it go beyond a professional observation? She could not help but wonder if Niccolo impregnated her with something far worse than her beloved twins.

"I fixed it." She shrugged, the tips of her hair caressing the bare flesh of her shoulders.

Still staring at the wall, Cyras admired her handiwork.

Before she fixed them, the weapons hanging from the wall had all been affixed to the surface vertically, with the pommels up. It was likely that way for convenience and ease of removal. Almost all the assassins she knew in the Olessan Empire and Glorendt mounted their weapons in similar fashion. Durzo was no different in that regard.

Now, every other blade was at a ninety-degree angle to the one before it, so that they went down the wall in a step-like pattern. She had even repainted the outlines around the ones she had moved as an homage to what was there before. Something about the pattern soothed her; it made her feel that there was a certain order in the universe and that she had had a hand in creating that order. It was the first step to taking back her life and not allowing her imprisonment in Midcyru to affect her future.

"You call that fixed?!" Durzo bellowed, his face reddening in anger. Wrath stormed in the depths of his eyes, cresting to the blue surface.

Cyras hadn't seen him so furious before, and it both frightened and excited her in equal measure. Chastising herself, she tried to push down the emotions. The longer she was around Durzo, the more she felt uncontrollable. A wild emotion, foreign to her, rose inside of her and blossomed like cherry trees in early spring.

"I do," she answered nonchalantly. Her voice lacked the emotions raging inside of her, her training giving her the ability to create a calm facade.

"I don't give a shit what you do in your own safe houses," he responded, regaining his composure somewhat, "but when you are in mine, you are to leave my things exactly as you find them. Understood?!"

"Fuck you!" she snapped. Cyras stood, straightening to her full height. Although she looked like a dwarf next to Durzo, she would show him exactly the type of person he had insulted.

All she wanted was a place in that world, somewhere she could call home. She was stuck, and he had forbade her to leave the safe house many times. They didn't know the unforeseen consequences of her being there.

Yet, she knew that something had to give. She didn't want to cause him any strife, but at the same time, it seemed like he went out of his way to annoy her. Lesser men died for attempting to control her.

"I don't have a fucking choice of lodging, do I?! I'm forced to be in this peasant's shit hole! The least that you can do for me is let me make it my own. That, or you can let me leave, you tyrant!" Her angry eyes met his in blatant challenge. Cyras could feel the tension rippling through the air. She wasn't going to back down, not this time.

"Fix it back," Blint demanded. His face was completely devoid of expression. He could have been talking about the weather for all the emotion carried in his voice and upon his face. Like a smithy's coals, his neutral expression billowed the flames of her anger.

"Fuck you," she reiterated through clenched teeth. The words tumbled from her lips as if they were floating on a breeze.

Every fiber in her body was coiled, a spring craving release. She didn't know if she wanted to kill Durzo or fuck him. Images of his death and passionate release jolted through her mind, flickering like lightning arcing across the sky. The fact that she couldn't differentiate between desires frightened her more than a thousand nights with Niccolo Napoli.

Durzo crossed to her, his arm moving faster than her eyes could see. One moment it was at his side. In the next, his hand was gripping her chin tightly, forcing her to look into those damned intense eyes.

_Fuck that expression_, she thought. So many times she had looked in dull, lifeless eyes. She watched the light leave her marks, the listless anger of her master, and the passionless motions of the men that raped her to control a woman.

Cyras lifted her arms and grasped Durzo's forearm. Her nails pieced into his flesh like tiny needles.

Still, she couldn't tear her gaze away from his eyes. To see that much intensity in someone sparked something inside of her, as it had done with Vaene. It felt foreign to her now, alien. Lost in the headiness of memories, her lips parted slightly.

Then, blissfully, horrifyingly, Durzo bent his head and kissed her. The embrace was neither gentle nor was it bereft of passion. His mouth angled over hers, pressuring painfully against hers, and leaving the tangy taste of garlic in its wake.

Her hand curled around his, piercing his flesh with her manicured fingernails. A war raged inside of her, the desire burning away at her restraint. She tried to remember Vaene, but she had to confess to herself that he was the furthest thing from her mind. As Durzo kissed her, she had to admit that the only thing she thought about was the passionate embrace of the elder wetboy. Cyras had thought that the part of her that desired others was dead, but it seemed to be stronger than it ever was.

Just as suddenly as he had kissed her, Durzo pushed her away. The fire burned in his eyes, glittering within. His lips sparkled from the moisture of her mouth.

Her senses reeled and recovered slightly, fueled by desire cut short. She slapped at his face, but her hand stopped not halfway to his cheek, his other hand clenched tightly to her wrist.

"Fix. It. Back." he whispered. His breath was hot against her lips; his eyes kept that same look of intensity. Now, there was something else mixing with it, and Cyras couldn't begin to dissect it.

"No." Cyras uttered, feeling the wetness on her own lips. She was confused and frightened. Cyras couldn't begin to guess at the mixture of emotions within her. All she knew was that Durzo represented a new threat to her, the very same kind of threat that Vaene once had.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**

Cyras paced in the safe house alone, counting the eleven paces involuntarily and feeling like a caged animal, yet she did not particularly wish to go anywhere else. The last time that she felt that way was when she was with Vaene after he had discovered her true identity. He had left her confused, doubting, and stunned. Now, this wetboy left her in the same state of bewilderment; she couldn't stop thinking about him.

She replayed the kiss over and over in her mind, trying to determine the path that the two of them took to arrive at such an astonishing conclusion to their argument. Never in her life did she think that someone like Durzo, or even Vaene, would desire her. The only thing that she knew in her life was death, and murder did not make for civil conversations.

The knowledge that she wanted it to be more than what it was burned deeply within the recesses of her mind. Since the fiasco with Vaene, she had blocked all feelings, rapidly erecting defenses around her heart. As she pushed Durzo away and the wetboy became distant, they were drawn back together like magnets. Her attraction to Blint didn't make sense to her, and she was reminded, painfully, of her attraction to the Olessan king.

_How could I be having these thoughts? _Cyras turned around, and the sound of her soft footfalls echoed in the small room. She hadn't felt anything that strong since Vaene Arturis, and she had never felt like that before him. Blood and misery filled her life before her king, and it had crashed back into the vacuum create in the wake of his passion.

As she pushed her hand through her hair, the mass brushed against her fingertips and the sides of her face. She inhaled, and her breasts strained against the thin fabric. Her cleavage threatened to spill out.

Vaene was supposed to be the only one that she desired. Her patron deity created each for the other. He was the only man that could understand the nuances in her life and the reasons for them.

As she lifted her head and gazed around the room, the truth hit her like a patron slapping her across the face. Shock echoed in the wake of anger. Vaene was not the only one who could understand the reason why she did certain things a specific way. For some reason that he neglected to tell her, order dominated Blint's life as well.

Cyras felt as if she was betraying the love she held for Vaene with her feelings for Durzo. Yet, she couldn't help it. It was as if the wetboy knew about the weaknesses left in her fortifications. _Could it be that I am not immune to emotions as I had previously thought?_ She didn't feel like one numbed by the teachings of the Shade. Instead, she felt like a peasant.

Spinning around again, she changed direction. The swift action swirled the air around her and fluttered the hem of her dress.

If Durzo had pursued her, she would have slept with him willingly. While she was a willing participant with Vincento, she had never anticipated the act as she had done with Vaene and Blint. She would have enjoyed it.

She nipped at her bottom lip, sucking it into her mouth, and inhaled again. Having been through the life that she had, such desires were completely unnatural. For a time, before Vaene, she had thought herself dead of such burning desires and emotions. The assassin knew that it was a coping mechanism for the way that her master and others treated her.

Without her aloof ways, she would have perished many years ago. The ability to feel desire for another that wasn't the one that she was meant for terrified her. Like an apparition lurking in the confines of her mind, it haunted her, lowering and raising her defenses at the same time.

The intensity of the emotions left no room for doubt. She narrowed her brow, staring at the trinket of her deity, and sneered. _I am suppose to be above this petty emotion._ Niccolo had beaten it from her long ago.

As she grew angry, she tried to make sense of the storm that raged like a hurricane within her. She hated that she couldn't control what she was feeling. Despising the emotions, she hated that Durzo didn't finish what he started. She hated herself for wanting him to finish what he started. Most of all, Cyras hated that he left.

Ire crested under her bosom, clenching her heart tightly in its embrace. She dove her fist into the wall, feeling the thin paper crumble beneath the weight of her frenzied fury.

With a clatter, the weapons tumbled from their assigned places on the wall. They fell to the floor like large drops of rain, tinkling in tune with her rage.

"I can't go on like this!" she muttered, exclaiming to herself.

* * *

><p>Cyras couldn't go on much longer in the fashion she had been. She was exhausted, mentally and physically. The stress of her transport to Midcyru, the energy released in the process, left her nearly drained of ven. Then, the wild release a recently that wilted almost all of the plants in the bedchamber of the safe house had almost depleted what was left.<p>

Trying to glean what life energy she could from the plants that she was growing, the mists rose to her nose. She inhaled deeply and felt the agonizing hunger, encompassing in its need, grow in the pit of her stomach.

She gathered up the back of her hair, pulling the strands aloft into a loose ponytail. Tying a thin strip of cloth around the bulk of it, she knotted the fabric loosely. The ends brushed against the exposed flesh of her neck, touching the beginnings of the scarred, puckered flesh of her upper back.

The alien emotions that she was feeling for Durzo were taking a toll on her in her weakened state. That was the only explanation that she could fathom; it _had_ to be it. There was only one man for her, and he did not reside in Midcyru. He sat on the Arathean throne...

_No, that's not quite it._ Vaene was likely dead; it was her fault. Cyras failed in the one task that she set for herself. If she knew Niccolo as well as she thought she did, he probably flayed Vaene alive, pulling the Arathean king's skin from his body while using magick and herbs to keep him lucid.

Pain spread forth from her, piercing her like the fangs of a death viper. She swallowed the lump of agony as it crested in her throat.

_Durzo's a distraction from my grief,_ she reasoned. He was an unwanted diversion, but he was needed. She pursed her lips, gazing at the mist, and lost herself in her own thoughts.

As the days passed following the feral energy expelled itself from her flesh, her decaying condition escalated. Strands of white sprinted through her bright locks, mixing with the blonde. The creases at the corners of her eyes deepened, creating crag-like lines on the planes of her countenance.

_I'm dying._ Cyras knew the ramifications of expelling too much energy. When her ven was completely diminished, she would die. With no source of a sublimate power, her life force would be snuffed out like someone quenching a candle wick. With how rapid she estimated she was aging, she came to the conclusion that she would be a corpse within nine years; she would be mad within five.

Searing ache flared in the joints of her body, expanding to every inch of her. The anguishing discomfort crested, leaving misery in its place. She tried to remain clandestine about her condition, but it was growing increasingly difficult with each passing day. Cyras was like an addict cut off, and her need was winning out.

As she moved her head, she listened to a sharp crack echo within her mind. It felt as if it was between her ears, sprinting back and forth like a runner in the spring day relay. Inhaling, she tried to quiet the pain lurking beneath flesh.

She needed Vener's Tears. She did possess a small vial of the shiny, fluid metal which she carried on her person at all times for use in case of emergencies. Cyras liked to be ready for anything that society or nature could hurl her way.

_This situation has long since passed an emergent state._ She delayed because she did not want to use the small quantity she had unless it was absolutely necessary. She didn't know where she would be able to get more, even if she could, and she did not want to ask Blint if such a substance existed in that plane.

She scowled as she anticipated his reaction. He would ask what it was for, and when he learned of the illness that its use affected upon Cyras, he would refuse to help her. Why would he assist her in something that could end up killing her if she took too much?

At this point, since he kissed her, Cyras wanted to avoid hi: at all costs. The path that she walked with Durzo was dangerous. It could erupt into a wild fire, edging out all reason, and burn out of control through her life. If it got to that point, Cyras would be heartbroken. She would have to leave someone she cared for again. That was a fate that anyone would avoid.

_This is something that I must deal with on my own._

The small vial stared at her from the table across the room; the scene reflected in the gleaming surface of its contents.

A bead of sweat darted downward, curving to the convex shape of her cheek. It rolled, plunging, and trickled off of the point of her chin. Lifting her hand to her forehead, she brushed off the moisture clinging to her flesh.

She strode to the small table, sweeping it up with her hand. The vial containing the tears of the vener felt light, almost as if it held no weight. Soon, it wouldn't matter. Soon, she wouldn't feel anything but the antagonizing vapors. It would be followed by bliss.

* * *

><p>Cyras carried the vial of Vener's Tears over to a candle she had scavenged from one of Durzo's cabinets. He surely didn't keep track of them, and if he did, he wouldn't mind her taking one.<p>

_Maybe,_ she thought, _he would if he knew what I am using it for. _That was one of the reasons that she didn't tell him. She didn't want him to interfere needlessly. He would think that she was trying to join the Death plane again. It was an incident that she didn't want to repeat.

Her stomach churned as a lump rose violently at the base of her throat. As she lifted her hand to her face and covered her mouth, she tried to swallow the solid mass. The slimy bulge slithered back down her throat, leaving an awkward heat behind.

She knew she shouldn't have been worried as far as Blint was concerned. He had conflicted her thoughts, burning away her warm memories of Vaene with the punishing pressure of his mouth. Durzo cursed her. Blint was an interloper on her heart just as she was to his world.

Her shadow danced on the wall behind her as she lit the candle. The flame swayed, twirling in the currents of the room, as it fed on the air like a dragon on a fresh equine carcass. It grew, stretching its elongated body like a blooming rose trying to kiss the morning sun.

Once the flame had taken and grown, she blew out the lantern that she had rested on the table next to the candle. Blackness enveloped the small bubble of light cast by the flickering flame.

Candle light illuminated her fair face, framing her nose, mouth, and chin in its glow. Bright eyes glittered in the diminished light. The heat warmed her flesh, cocooning her in its comforting embrace.

Inhaling, she held her breath. Her chest puffed out, breasts straining against the thin fabric of the frock. She lifted the vial, poured some of the silvery liquid onto a concave copper plate, and held it over the candle flame.

A rush of anger surged inside of her. As the vessel hovered above the candle, she thought that the liquid would never reach the temperature that it needed to be at. She clenched her teeth together.

It had been too long since she had taken the Vener's Tears, and she wondered how much of her life-force was lost in the expulsion of wild energy. The wrinkles puckering around the corners of her eyes made her look as if she was much older.

_I am_, she growled as she continued to watch the stagnant liquid. A tightness entered in her chest, clenching as if a vener, itself, reached inside of her and grasped her heart with their brutal fingers.

The liquid began to roil, and a thick vapor started to steam out from the bubbles as they burst like tiny pimples on a child's face. Vener's Tears was always strange. It was one of the only things that Cyras knew of that released odorless vapor. Each small bubble, appearing in the metal, burst and offered its life saving gas.

Hope and need exploded like tiny stars before her eyes. The emotions mixed together, tumbling in her like the acrobatic masters training their pupils.

Without hesitation, the actions made autonomous from years of practice, Cyras leaned over the boiling fluid, breathing in deeply through her nose, making sure to inhale as much of the acrid vapors as she could. Her body screamed for more, engorging itself on the thick steam even as her head began to swim and the colors of the world blurred together.

Sharp tingles raced along her arms and legs before the feeling in them faded completely. She stumbled forward, bumping into the table. The herbs swayed, tips of their budding leaves brushing against the sides of the earthenware pots. Dirt spilled out in a puff of debris and drifted to the floor.

Flesh stretched over the skin near her eyes, covering over the riveted creases of age, spreading anguishing, ivory incandescence before her vision. Blond streaked down the white strands of hair, bringing life where death crept before.

Invisible mists entered inside of her, curling deep beneath her skin, and flowed through her blood, seeking the ven inside. The magickal mist bonded to the ven, twisting around the mystical threads of life.

Her awareness of the world faded, and she hadn't heard the locks tumble and the door to the safe house open. She didn't hear the heavy footfalls echoing across the wooden floor. Everything around her, blending into an intangible mirage, ceased to exist.

"What are you doing?" Kylar asked, his voice tinted with obvious concern.

Her heart leaped in her throat as she was caught unawares.

Cyras turned slowly despite her surprise, her arms limp at her sides and her legs refusing to turn with her. Her face refused to show how startled she was, not on her own, but from the state after taking the ven. It was a testament to how comfortable she was in the safe house and how dire her need was.

Had she been of sound mind and not inebriated like a common drunk after his visit to the tavern, she would have chastised herself for allowing Kylar to catch her oblivious of her surroundings.

_Fortunately, _she thought, _it wasn't Durzo._ She didn't think that she had the ability to remain aloof with the man in this condition. Cyras wasn't in a mental state for quick thinking. At the very least, she wouldn't have been able to rebuke his advances.

She looked at Kylar with heavy lidded eyes; her bright gaze obstructed by the fumes of the Vener Tears.

Bile rose in her throat, ejecting itself from the bottom of her stomach. Her cheeks tinged with pinkness.

"I need to replenish my Ven, or I will die," Cyras said as she fought the wave of nausea that threatened to overcome her. She wasn't sure if she was going to vomit or pass out, but she wanted nothing more than to sleep. It was always an after effect of using the metallic liquid as it bonded with the strands of her life force.

"That's not a very direct answer," Kylar responded. "It didn't even really answer my question."

Cyras swallowed again, but the lump in her throat refused to go down. She was going to vomit, but she couldn't. The elixir had to stay down, or it would never attach to the fabric of her life properly.

_Plus, there is so few drops left. _If she expelled any more of her life, she would surely die in that place. It was a very real possibility to Cyras, and the thought chilled her. Cyras couldn't control herself while she slept.

"What are you doing?" He motioned to the candle, the copper plate now on the table next to it. The plate was covered with a cracked, dry residue, the remnants of the fluid she was heating. He would never be able to determine what the material was.

"It's Vener's Tears," she answered. Even in her condition, Cyras slipped into the roll of a mentor, flawlessly. She had taught one of her apprentices, Jadun, when she was under the conditions of healing and the aftermath of renewing her life. "Some mages in my world must inhale the vapors created from burning it. It replenishes our life-energy."

The bile surged up her throat again and burned as it sought release. She wondered if Vaene had defeated Niccolo or if he had even noticed that she was gone.

_No, that's not right._ He told her to leave; he wouldn't be looking for her. It was a slim chance that he escaped both her sister and her master. She was supposed to rescue him as he had her those many months before.

"Is that satisfactory?" she blinked as her eyelids drooped further. A part of her just wanted him to go and leave her with the side effects of taking the essence of her deities.

Kylar grunted and shrugged. His sleeves glided gracefully from his movements.

She needed him to leave her alone. Cyras wanted to cope with the side effects of the elixir by herself without the scrutinizing gaze of the young wetboy. If he was one of her apprentices, he would never give her the looks of concern that he was currently. Well, with one exception: Aria.

"You look like shite," he commented. At least, given his instructions on his language, she considered him an ally. He was one of two people that she knew in that world, and she preferred his company as oppose to the questionable emotions that Blint inspired. "Are you going to be alright?"

She couldn't respond to him. Her tongue lay thick in her mouth, refusing to comply with a simple request. Cyras would be fine in a day. In her world, from Niccolo's abuse, it was usually longer.

"Should I get Master Blint?" He asked much to the assassin's chagrin.

"No!" Cyras blurted, forcing herself to talk.

Durzo would overreact, thinking that she was harming herself. To heal oneself, pain always came first whether it was a stomach wound or renewing her energy. He would demand her to give up the rest of the precious fluid. At the very least, he would want to see what it was and not accept it for what it was, a vener's tears. Blint did not believe in her gods, or any god, for that matter.

"I just need to be left alone to rest. Go away." She tried to shoe him away with her hand, but her arm refused to cooperate. "Just go. . ." Her voice trailed off.

The room spun, and her head pounded with the pressure of the mixture trying to purge itself from her body. _It wouldn't be much longer now._ Her ven was going to reject the last of the tears.

Suddenly, she swooned. Cyras tipped out of the chair, crashing to the floor unconscious. It would seem that whatever the vener had wanted with the world of Midcyru didn't matter. His champion, the one he personally picked, had failed. She would die.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

_The cerulean mist, licking her naked flesh, cooled he as it squirmed between her toes, rolling over her legs, and folding around her arms. Bending her head, Cyras Covelli gazed at her body. Strands of her hair swayed against her cheeks and framed her face in a halo like sunshine. She was completely disrobed, and while she was aware of the fact, she was not uncomfortable._

_Amazement shifted through her body as it vibrated her core. Her scars, the badges of Niccolo's cruelty, were gone. There was not so much as a blemish on her body. She appeared as Am__é__s wished her to be. Naked. Flawless. Perfection._

Perfection_, she thought._ That is a laughable concept. _Through most of her life, she tried to achieve that elusive desire. She dedicated herself to her training, giving herself over to the Shade's sadistic tendencies, obsessing over the plans' for the Grand Duke, and then, she devoted herself to the protection of her loved one. Of course, she failed in that final endeavor, as well._

_Given the events that she had been through before she took the vener's tears to extend her life-force, she didn't know if she was dreaming or awake. The mist blanketed her feet, swirling in a tendril mass aloft and threatened to cover her entire body. Still, she did not feel threatened. _

_A calm washed over her like the waters of a gently flowing river. For one of the first times in her life, she felt at peace. There was no anxiety of a later beating from her master, no uneasiness concerning her feelings for her lover, and no fear of disappointment from her reluctant roommate. All that existed for her was the soothing mist caressing her flesh._

_"Cyras," a familiar voice spoke in a soothing tone. A blue silhouette approached, the fog concealing the person within. She didn't need to see who was calling her. Upone hearing him, she knew who it was._

_Her heart skipped in her chest, ramming with the wanton need that she previously had. _Or,_ she mused,_ it's never went away.

_The fog parted, swirling wildly in the wake. The figure materialized, and, in sapphire light, his bright hair gleamed with blue, glinting in the queer haze of their surroundings. She could see that it was Vaene._

_Her thoughts split into two beliefs. Her breathing sprinted past her lips in a gasp. Momentarily, she wondered if she had died. After the trials and tribulations of her arrival to Midcyru, her arguments with Blint, and her learning with Stern, had she finally been reunited with her love in the Ven plane?_

_Billowing like the smoke from a blacksmith's kiln, the mist circled around them, slithering along the springy ground. It avoided the king of the Olessan Empire, forking around his body while it covered her's._

_"Cyras," he stated again, his calm voice forcing her to lift her head and stare in his eyes. His eyes did not resemble what they had. A blue miasma swirled within them, raising aloft, and glimmered ivory before losing itself in his hair. He extended his hand to her. "Come to me."_

_Though her legs didn't seem to be moving, Cyras drifted towards Vaene as if they were two magnets being pulled to one another. Blissful hope swelled within her, and she wanted nothing more than to spend an eternity in that place with the man that she loved, one of the only ones who could understand her. _

_That couldn't be the case. Considering the crimes she had committed against decency in her lifetime, she didn't deserve the bliss of the Ven Plane and eternal life with the one person she wanted to be with. There was a special place saved for the Black Tigress in the death plane. That was her fate, not his. Not this. She frowned._

_For a brief moment, she knew that she was dreaming. The knowledge twisted within her, festering inside like maggots on an infected wound. Instead of drawing out the poison of his absence, mourning set in, amplified with the feel of their attraction. She wanted to scream at him and unleash her wrath at the situation. Yet, her rage subsided inexplicably, and peace overcame her._

_"I'm dreaming," she stated, her voice tinged with distraught apprehension. Cyras frowned. Everything in her body stopped. She halted in her drifting towards Vaene. A sobering moment, as if she was a drunk and someone dumped cold water over her, overcame her._

_"I'm afraid so, Cyras," Vaene responded, sadness weighing heavily on his tone. He continued to hold his hand out for her. The comfort exuded by him and this place blanketed over her doubts, once more._

_She stood as she gazed at the familiar shape of his face. As much as she wanted to take his hand, she wouldn't. Melancholy, threatening to eclipse the optimism, battered her heart. She breathed in, sucking in the mist._

_"Don't awaken just yet, my love. I have something important to tell you."_

_"What does it matter?" Cyras sighed. Sorrow ate the hope he inspired, leaving behind the bloated corpse of despair. "It isn't truly you. This is a product of my own desperate mind."_

_He shook his head mournfully._

_"Fine. Tell me. It's not like it'll matter much. I'm stuck in Midcyru, and you are dead, love. My mind is trying to cling to a hope that doesn't exist."_

_"If you truly want to return to me, my love_," _Vaene spoke calmly, as if he hadn't even heard what she said, "then you must take action soon before the next midsummer's cycle in our plane." The peace roling off of him infuriated her, bosoming rage inside. _

_"I don't understand."_

_"Remember, to open your heart to love once, and both of the worlds, along with everyone you love, will be destroyed. Open your heart to love again, and the worlds will be saved, though you cannot save the ones you truly love." _

_There the prophecy was again, slicing through all reason. Even her deceased lover was urging her to move on for the good of both worlds. Her thoughts flickered with the memory of Durzo's kiss, the harsh pressure of his mouth against her own. How could her finding love affect the world in such a way?_

If I am capable of love_, she thought bitterly. Cyras had previously thought her emotions were like a fortress on top of a cliff side. None could break through her defenses. Since the man before her, Blint had. She was even growing comfortable with his apprentice. Those thoughts terrified her. It would lead to her death and an inability to do her job._

_"What must I do? I only know two people in that place. I hardly think that they have the ability to transport me across realms, Arturis." She tried to keep the doubt from her voice. Taking the easy way out, she avoided the talk about her emotions._

_"To return to me, you must love again _and_ you must die. It is the only way."_

* * *

><p>"Are you trying to die?!" A terse voice startled her from her blissful dream. Cyras snapped her eyes opened to see Durzo standing at the foot of her bed. Her heart skipped in her chest, racing wildly in its cavity. "Are you fucking stupid?!"<p>

His tone cut into her. It reminded her of Niccolo, and she fought the urge to wilt before him. There was a few times that she had seen Blint discipline Kylar for the idiotic things that the young man had done. It usually consisted of a quick slap to the face. Beating an apprentice was the usual punishment for the wrong actions. Yet, the master didn't want to permanently injure them. It was the lesson that she took from the Shade that he, himself, didn't understand.

She sucked in a large breath. As she exhaled, her lungs throbbed. Cyras coughed, and moisture lined her bottom lip.

"Are you trying to kill yourself? Because I can think of some more productive ways to get it done." He glared, irritated, at her. The weight of his stare struck her, and once more, she felt as a child again.

As she glowered at him like a petulant adolescent, the corner of her eye spasmed. Agony shot from the orb, seared aloft, and thumped in the center of her mind. She sneered, refusing to give into the displeasure.

Her hands felt cold like someone had jabbed a thousand needles into her flesh. She clenched her fists, burrowing her fingernails into the skin of her palms before releasing them. _One_, she counted and sought comfort in the numbers.

She felt like shit. It was to be expected, though. It was exactly how she felt after each administration of Vener's tears. Still, she had survived, though she was left with the thoughts carried over from the dream. Vaene was urging her to move on, to find someone other than him. Cyras didn't think that she could do it.

"Are you going to answer me, or are you going to lay there and blink?" Durzo reiterated. The words, connecting with each forceful release, slashed at her like well aimed blows from a sword.

Ivory heat, flaring in rhythm to his cruel voice and the spasms in her eye, scorched her mind. She raised her arm and placed the palm of her hand to her forehead. Cyras pressed down hard, but the pain refused to abate.

"You poisoned yourself with mercurial! Why would you do that?"

"There are things that you don't understand." She swallowed the salvia that had been building in her mouth since she drank the metallic liquid.

"Try me."

"I would have died if I hadn't taken it," Cyras spoke groggily. Sleep pulled at the edges of her eyelids. They felt as if they had weights attached to the lashes. All she wanted to do was let the silence of the safe house overtake her. She didn't want to have to deal with Durzo and his outburst. She wanted the blissfulness of the dream again.

His gaunt cheeks pulled inward as he pursed his lips in disgust. She could read the questions in his eyes. He would want to know why she would have died? After all, in his eyes, she looked fine. If she had waited longer to take the fluid, he would have known immediately though.

"This is why I didn't tell you." She motioned vaguely to him to signify his reaction.

He didn't answer her. Durzo stood there, as still as a statue, and refused to acknowledge what she was saying. There were many times when he overreacted since she had known him. Most of those occurrences centered around her. In her heart, she understood that it was because they were too similar.

Still, Cyras didn't want to admit that she was like _him_. She sighed, forcing the air out of her lungs.

As the moment between them stretched, Cyras contemplated the vision she had while under the sleep of the Vener's tears. Like the apparition that he was, Vaene's words haunted the woman in her waking state. They threatened to tear her reality apart and pulled at her subconscious with their intangible talons.

The memory of the dream felt real. She could still feel the tips of her love's fingers as she reached for him and the musky smell that she could only attribute to Vaene. It was too accurate to be anything but what it was. Vaene had come to her from the Ven Plane to comfort her in her time of need. That was the only possibility.

Vaene had told her to love again. _How could he ask that of me? _She bit at the corner of her mouth as she looked away from Blint. At that frantic moment, she did not know that Durzo was there. When she did something stupid, the man was always there. It was as if he was waiting for her to screw up, but as irritating as that particular quality was, she found it endearing.

She inhaled, sucked in a large mass of air, and swallowed the lump in her throat. This was something that Durzo could help her with: Vaene's admission. After all she had gone through, all she had lost to Arturis, the Olessan king wanted her to move on and find love again.

Her stomach clenched tightly, searing agony radiating from her abdomen. Bile raised from her throat, and she swallowed the lump. It scorched as it descended. She was lucky, or weak, enough to have found love once. Those in her profession did not love, and they were not loved. If a love one was found, then he or she would be used against the assassin. Cyras knew that as well as she knew the various herbs that provided the toxins for her poisons.

Cyras closed her eyes as the weight of exhaustion pulled at her eyelids like boulders. To think that love could happen twice was delusional. _That's all her _vision_ was_, she thought: _a delusion created in a desperate mind._ She was losing her edge, a product of the lack of work, she surmised. Knowing that she would have to remedy that problem at some point, Cyras determined that she would have to pick her battles as they came to her. Presently, her fight was with the vision. She was left alone with her thoughts, something she tried to avoid at all costs. Her thoughts were ugly and beyond her control. They centered around the multiple methods of killing.

There was another theory to Vaene's spirit coming to her. Her heart raced in her chest, threatening to rip from the cavity. She clenched her teeth tightly together; pressure built inside her mouth.

_Perhaps,_ she reasoned, _it is a test. _In life, after her deception was revealed, he rightfully questioned her love for him. Vaene was testing their love. Niccolo had murdered the king of Olessa, showing no mercy for the other man. Arturis was dead, likely on the Ven plane, waiting for his true love to join him in the afterlife before being reborn.

Opening her eyes, she gazed at the wispy hairs blanketing Durzo's sharp jaw and hiding the pits on his cheeks. Her stomach flopped, turning over into itself. She tried to push down the fear that those bright eyes brought rushing to the surface. As the saliva dried in her mouth, she swallowed.

If she could fall for another, it would test her love for Vaene. Then when she died she would join the one with whom the love was the purest. She could not help but wonder if it would work if the one didn't believe in an afterlife, gods, or, wasn't even in the same plane. For her to love again, for her to be reunited with Vaene, she would have to love.

A smile glided across her lips, pulling at the corners of her mouth. This plan spoke volumes of Vaene's true character and one of the reasons that she loved him. In the afterlife, he was giving her a chance to prove her love to him. A second chance, one that would come with a price. It seemed Vaene was supremely competitive even in death.

Cyras would play the game, for the time being. Her gaze slid over the muscled form of the wetboy as she looked at him for the first time all over again. She would do anything to be reunited with the one man that her patron vener created for her.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

Durzo meticulously studied the array of equipment he had laid out on the utilitarian table of his nondescript east side safe house, matching it against the list in his mind. He picked up a small dagger, gazing at the gentle curve of the blade, the oiled leather of the grip, and the darkened jewel within the pommel. While he didn't need all of the weapons, he liked to be prepared.

He grimaced as his thoughts drifted back to two months before when a naked woman fell into his life. At least, he never liked to be caught in a situation that he wasn't ready for. Cyras had caught him unprepared, and his life was still reeling from the impact. She stormed through his life, erupting all within it like a wild tornado, and there was no end in sight.

Automatically, he slid the dagger into a sheath attached to the dark baldric crossing his chest. The job didn't require the use of a weapon. His client was exact on what he wanted, and he was paying Blint many gundars for it. Before Cyras' arrival, he had slowly begun poisoning his deader.

Making a deader appear to commit suicide was a delicate task. It took months of preparation, studying the habits of the deader and placing them in a reckless mood, and sometimes it involved just the right amount of illusion and poison. Durzo knew just how much he needed for this particular one. He smirked at the humorous thought.

As he was collecting the equipment and placing it on his garments, affixing them to various hooks and sheathes and placing them into hidden pouches, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Her touch felt warm against the flesh beneath the thin wetboy livery.

Stiffening from the sign of affection, he frowned. Her recent change in demeanor confused him like a jester befuddled a high king. He'd known of Cyras' presence from the moment she had stepped into the room. One didn't live as long as he had without picking up some useful habits.

She rubbed his shoulders with a grip that most women didn't possess. His flesh slid beneath her fingertips, smoothing out the aches that came with his life, the disruptions that she had caused.

When he tilted his head to the side, an audible pop sounded from his neck. He moaned in appreciation. This wasn't the first time that she approached him in the last two weeks. While she didn't wear down his defenses, he found that he didn't find her touch altogether unpleasant.

Cyras didn't normally wear perfume; however, the smell of jasmine and cherry blossoms overtook him. It circled around his head, brushing against his lips, and caressed his nose with its sweet scent. When he kissed her those many weeks ago, he would have noticed the soft scent. He refused to dwell on the simple fact that he had kissed her, and he would not question the reasons why. The simple truth was that he didn't know why. Still, the knowledge that there was no trace of the aroma bounced through his thoughts.

Durzo's brow narrowed as he wondered when she had ventured out of the safe house. Then, the second question sprang forth through his mind like an arrow from a well drawn bow._ What's she getting at?_ he wondered.

"You're not coming with me," he droned without turning away from his task. Picking up a blade from the table, he placed it in the sheath at his hip. The sound ringed, echoing in the space of the common room.

"I wouldn't dream of suggesting that," Cyras responded. She gripped his shoulders tightly as she kneaded the muscles beneath his grays. One of her fingers slipped past his garment and glided across the flesh of his neck sending a shiver racing along his spine.

If she didn't want that, he was lost as to what she was trying to accomplish. Her actions didn't make much sense to him, and Durzo hated it when things perplexed him. There was not much that did anymore.

He turned around, lifting his gaze to her eyes, and studied her expression.

Her bright gaze softened. The brown specks inside her verdant irises glittered in the candle light, the glow illuminating the green. Heat flushed her cheeks and reddened the curvature of her face. She sucked in her bottom lip and bit the inside of her cheek.

_If she doesn't want to come with me,_ he pondered, _what does she want? _If she wasn't trying to get something from him, he could only surmise that she was trying to seduce him, but she had been distant and cold to him from the moment of her arrival. If she was truly trying to seduce him, she had a strange way of coming to it. Women. Those were people that he would never understand.

Cyras seemed unfazed by Durzo's silence. In fact, she actually appeared to be spurred on by it. She was strange. Many would take his silence for what it was, a signal that the conversation was over and that he didn't want to be bothered.

He frowned again. His life spun on end, rotating until it was completely upside down. It was because of this woman; she affected him in more ways than he could either count, or admit. Durzo certainly was not going to confess to her those facts.

Once more, she approached him, not saying anything, leaving it for him to speak next. For the short time that he had known her, he knew she had a stubborn streak. She would leave him with his thoughts, allowing him to reflect on the doubts springing up within him. Durzo appreciated those soft qualities about her; she was no average woman.

As she neared him, he caught the strange scent again, one that he had smelled before, but not one that ever originated from Cyras. The odor grabbed his attention, making him focus on nothing else. It was cloyingly sweet, and his head swam with the potency of it.

The corner of her mouth lifted in a smirk as a small grin illuminated her face. Her eyes sparkled, glinting under her lowered eyelashes.

"What is that?" he asked, expecting her to know exactly what he was talking about. He didn't have a doubt that she would play oblivious of his question, but she understood him. At the present, Cyras fitted the role of a fool well.

She was trying to seduce him; Durzo was sure of it. Amusement rang within him, tolling with each bat of her eyelashes, flicker of a smile, and the warmth in her eyes, and chimed like the bells of a cathedral.

"That smell," he stated blankly. He was not the kind of man that would beat around the bush. Like with anyone, he preferred his conversations to be direct and to the point. There was enough masquerading among the nobility that it didn't need to extend to the lower castes of Cenaria. Narrowing his brow, he glared at her. "You're wearing perfume, one which I've never noticed you using before. I recognize it, though."

"What?" The surprise in her tone washed over him. Her eyes widened in surprise. From his brief time that he knew her, he knew that Cyras didn't like to give up control easily. He didn't know why she needed to have an iron grip on everything in her life, squeezing the life out of their friendly relationship nor did he know why she startled awake every day just before the sun broke over the cityscape when he returned to her.

_Although_, he thought, _a person doesn't need to be intelligent to see the results of her life. _Her many scars betrayed the story of her life. Her life was not filled with the lush trappings of nobility as much as she embellished about her station in the Olessan Empire. Durzo was not a simple man; he lived long enough to see the results of the selfish desires of humanity. Men stabbed each other in the back, often using Durzo as the blade. The bitter business was booming for him. Life was empty, devoid of any hope.

"What did I tell you about leaving the safe house unaccompanied? You don't belong here, Cy. If you aren't careful, you're going to fuck everything up." He lifted Retribution off the wall. The immense sword's blade glittered, mocking him with his loss. Without another mournful thought, he slid it into the sheath on his back.

She remained silent, pursing her lips and dropping the facade she presented to him, and he hoped she was considering the gravity of the circumstances of her leaving.

"You are like a disease to this world. Everything you come into contact with, you infect. That infection will spread further the longer that you are here. Don't be a stupid, fucking cunt. Stay in the house."


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

Durzo stood on the lip of the wall, hood shrouding his head, his face covered in a ebony mask with his cold eyes glinting out from a slit in the cloth. He cloaked himself in shadows, and stared down into the courtyard. The darkness wrapped around him, the wetboy livery blending into the inkiness of the night. His target, a lesser noble who had brazenly turned his back on the Shinga, resided within the enclosed estate.

He breathed out, and a stream of warm air escaped past his thin lips. It was chilly that night; the stars twinkled in the heavens, shimmering like radiant orbs from the iciness of the air. Of course, that was a stroke of luck that played into Durzo's hand. Whether it would be bad or good luck remained to be seen.

A flicker of movement below, on the cobblestone path leading travellers through the courtyard, caught Durzo's attention, forcing his gaze to that dimly lit path. For any normal person, it would have appeared as simply a blur in the background or a trick of the moonlight. He knew better than that. Because of his experience, he remained observant of his surroundings. A blur in the background could be a dagger aimed at the soft spot between his ribs.

As the two people passed beneath the gate, Durzo counted. He cocked his head as would a deer. Holding his breath, he listened to the voices drifting to him.

"You will be secure in your parent's estate, mi lady," a masculine voice sounded up to the wetboy and echoed in the stillness of the courtyard.

Durzo pressed his back against the wall, sending a surge of Talent through him, and melded into the shadows. He had always been proud, some would say arrogant, of his abilities, and he was interested in learning all he could about the Talent. If the people in the courtyard had looked up, they would have found shadow, nothing more.

"I don't think-" The muffled sound of her voice whispered to him as the whining squeal of a newborn child interrupted her. She held the swaddled bundle closer to her chest, protecting it from the outside forces of the world. Securing its future, she protected it from people like him.

Some time ago, a doubt would have wiggled deep within Blint's heart. It would have made him second guess himself, throwing his choices in question.

_Too long ago,_ he thought, _I've turned into a monster. _Durzo squared his jaw and felt the comforting presence of the shadows and talent surrounding him. He sought peace in that place as he hardened his heart against the muted, screeching cries of the infant.

"His illness won't have traveled that far south."

Over the course of the preceding months, he had been poisoning the deader regularly, slipping a dose into his evening tea. It created an illusion, convincingly, that the deader's health was deteriorating. As the month's passed by, the fat man thinned and had reclused himself.

"I worry about him as does the other nobility," the woman breathed out. She held back a sob, choking on the emotions that must have been coursing through her. From what Durzo knew, the match was not one forged out of love but necessity. Still, a woman could not remain in a close relationship with someone else and not forge an intimate outlook to the person. "He loses more than he takes in, Samuel. He refuses to see anyone, and no one wants to see him. They are terrified that they will catch what he has."

Those around the deader became convinced that he had fallen ill with some contagion which shared the same symptoms with the poison Durzo was using. He had spent much time researching the exact dosage for the man, referring to those herbs he knew and the rare few he did not.

The one she referred to as Samuel did not utter anything. Durzo watched as the other man moved closer to the woman and the newborn, placing his arm around her shoulder. He drew the woman to his side and cradled her and the infant she was holding against his chest.

A deafening wail pierced the courtyard as the noblewoman could not hold in her grief any longer. She continued to sob into the soldier that held her and her child. Everyone had a breaking point where numbness drowned their sorrows like an alcoholic drank himself stupid. Although he kept tight reign on his emotions, Durzo had reached that point himself several times in his lifetime.

Then, like a dam holding back the waters that threatened to flood a village, the emotions broke through, crashing over the woman, the man, and the infant. The guard continued his soothing murmurs as they passed under the gate and out of the lower noble's life. His child would grow up without him; his wife would soon move on.

On queue, the deader's family was leaving. His paltry retinue of guards were removed. That was Durzo's intent. Everything had been going perfectly to plan, the product of his meticulousness. Almost every time that Blint had planned something everything went accordingly.

Of course, there was one area of his life that he couldn't control at that moment. The golden haired woman in his safe house snuck into his thoughts, haunting his mind like a poltergeist. She sprinted through the confines of the rooms of his mind, forcing him to remember how they met and how his life was changed, for better or worse, because of her.

He clenched his teeth, focusing his on the courtyard. He would not think about Cyras at that moment. He rarely thought of anything while he was on a contract. He never drank before one, either. When he was on a job, he needed his wits about him. It was one of the things that made him the best wetboy in Cenaria, the best in Midcyru.

Dropping soundlessly onto the grass inside the wall, Durzo dampened the sound of his fall. The time for the final dose had come. That wasn't his only task, however. He was to find whatever information he could locate now that the estate was empty. The Shinga wanted to know how a nobody could have the courage to turn his back. There had to be someone else behind it, and Durzo was tasked with finding out who.

* * *

><p>The clear, odorless fluid mixed into the deader's tea with minimal effort. Durzo always made it his goal to leave as small of a footprint as possible. The people that mattered would know what had happened, but there would be nothing to link the wetboy physically to the deader.<p>

With the final dose of poison in place, Blint set about to searching for anything that might clue the Shinga into what the deader's motives were. With the estate nearly emptied of guards, his search was made uneventful. There was no one rushing to meet him, sword drawn. Most were cleared out, abandoning their charge in his illness.

_Everything's going as planned_, Durzo reassured himself. It was how he had intended it. Blint smiled, his lips stretching out into a thin line. He made his way towards the deader's office. Experience dictated that he was sure to find something in the man's private sanctuary.

Durzo wasted no time in his search of the office. He opened the few drawers on the simple, utilitarian desk. The few pieces of furniture sparsely placed in the room were nothing extravagant. His deader may have been a noble, but the state of his private quarters conveyed his lack of wealth.

Moonlight streamed through the large, stained-glass window. Winged cherubs flew above patches of eternally colorful flowers, refracting prismatic auras of light. The beings swooped as they dove on immense ivory wings. Saccharine smiles, reminding Durzo of house cats stalking their prey, were plastered on their porcelain flesh.

As he shut the final drawer, the glow from the fire place penetrated his greys and warmed the skin beneath the thin fabric. The desk was empty. It wasn't that there was nothing of interest in it; there was nothing at all in it. It would seem that this particular noble had fallen on especially hard times. That would explain how he had turned away from the Shinga. Sometimes, fear was not enough.

Frustrated, he looked away, and a portrait on the side wall caught his eye. The painting itself was nothing special, a depiction of the obese noble, but the wall next to it was interesting. He could make out light scratches in an arc next to the painting. He crossed to the portrait and lifted it from its place on the wall.

The wall concealed behind the painting had a hole bored into it. To an untrained eye, it would have appeared that this was a simple room, a place of sanctuary for a destitute noble. A wooden chest sat within the cavity. The metal strip, racing on both sides of the container, flashed in the fire light.

Pulling the chest out of the hollow, he brought it to the desk and sat it down. The chest, itself, was plain. There were no ornate carvings on it. The wood looked to be weathered as if someone had forgotten that particular trunk out in the rain for too long. It was completely, utterly plain.

Out of one of the pouches affixed to his hips, he pulled out a long, thin blade. The tip of it was turned aloft, ending at a sharp point. He placed the pick into the lock, pushing it to the back of the keyhole. This was an easy thing for him, something that came naturally with his amount of experience.

The lock protested as its pins pushed against the metal of the pick. He raked them again as he pulled the pick out as he placed in another tool. This piece of metal was thicker than the other, but, like the pick, the wrench's end curved upward.

Finally, the lock gave way. The lid popped open, springing against Durzo's hand; the wood felt cool to the touch. He found his evidence inside, laying neatly in the coffinesque vessel.

Some evidence, he thought. There was a single sheet of vellum, the writing on it completely illegible. The language was completely indiscernible in him, which was a surprise, given his experience. There was one word written in common, however, and seeing it set off alarms inside his mind. The word was written in the same flowing script as the foreign characters. The sharp swoops of the S screamed at him, forcing almost all of his attention to it.

His hair lifted on the back of his neck; the hackles raised in concern. He breathed in, expand his chest, and breathed out, expelling the shock as a puff of air. Durzo narrowed his eyes and stared at the piece of yellowed paper.

Strangely, the common did not stand out amidst the other strange lettering. The word was _Shinga_.


End file.
